An open day at The Underwater Centre in Fort William, a leading subsea trials and training centre, has been hailed a great success.
Among those attending was a former student, Derek Beddows, Upstream Diving Technical Authority for BP and a leading industry expert, qualified at the centre more than 30 years ago after completing the saturation closed bell gas course.
The open day provided an opportunity for industry executives to participate in the development of the centre and discuss emerging issues in the industry for which the centre could provide solutions.
It also gave representatives from organisations including Conoco Phillips, Shell, Oceaneering as well as BP and many others to view first-hand the centre’s facilities and see instructors and students at work.
Mr Beddows said: “As a former student I was able to appreciate on the day the many significant changes and improvements to the centre.
“In addition to being recognised by the UK HSE as the world’s leading training centre for commercial divers, it was very reassuring to see that a whole range of diver tools, training and skills development is also a big part of the diving syllabus.
“This historically has been an issue requiring focus, since ensuring a diver can dive safely is only a part of the process; once he has reached his worksite, the diver has to be able to execute a range of different tasks efficiently.
“I was also very impressed with the quality and enthusiasm of the tutoring and supervising.
“The day was also valuable to oil and gas companies in terms of fully understand the benefits to them of working closely with training providers to provide fit for industry personnel, in a complex and changing industry.”
Events included a cruise to the deep dive site, a tour of the saturation diving barge and pier, including ROV cabins and dive stations, as well as the indoor dive complex, ROV and NDT classrooms.
The Underwater Centre, Fort William, which also has a school in Tasmania, is located on the shore of a seawater loch, and is sheltered by the surrounding mountains.
The location allows it to provide year-round training and testing in an open-water environment and perform realistic and industry specific saturation and air diver and ROV pilot technician training and subsea equipment trials.
It is also the only subsea training centre to provide commercial diver and ROV training in one purpose-built underwater training site, giving students experience in an environment similar to what can be found offshore.
For further details of the centre call 01397 703786.
