A diving support vessel is a ship that is used as a floating base for professional diving projects. Italian ship-rigged vessel Amerigo Vespucci in New York Harbor, 1976 A ship is a large, sea-going watercraft, sometimes with multiple decks. ... Professional diving is diving for payment. ...
The ship transports heavy equipment, such as recompression chambers, large quantities of breathing gas supplies, remotely operated vehicles, diving bells and small submarines which need to available and operated at the dive site for long periods. A recompression chamber is a pressure vessel used to treat divers suffering from certain diving disorders such as decompression sickness. ... Air is the most common and only natural breathing gas. ... Remotely operated vehicles (ROV) are mobile tools used in environments too dangerous for humans. ... A diving bell is a cable suspended watertight chamber, open at the bottom, that is lowered underwater to operate as a base or a means of transport for a small number of divers. ... USS Los Angeles A submarine is a specialized watercraft that can operate underwater. ...
Cranes are used to lower and raise equipment such as bells and diving cylindersunderwater. A tower crane with a pivoted main boom A crane is a tower or derrick equipped with cables and pulleys that is used to lift and lower materials. ... 12 litre and 3 litre steel diving cylinders A diving cylinder or SCUBA tank is used to store and transport high pressure breathing gas as a component of an Aqua-Lung. ... For other uses of the word underwater, see Underwater (disambiguation) An underwater scene just beneath the surface Underwater, sometimes shortened as U/W, is a term describing the realm below the surface of water where the water exists in a natural feature (called a body of water) such as an...
The ship may also carry safety equipment, such as a recompression chamber, so that it can act as a platform for a rescue and treatment of divers in the event of an accident.
The divers and the operators of the diving equipment need to be accommodated and fed at the dive site.
A divingsupportvessel is a ship that is used as a floating base for professional diving projects.
A diving bell would transport the divers between the saturation system and the work site lowered through a "moon-pool" in the bottom of the ship, usually with a support structure "cursor" to support the diving bell through the turbulent waters near the surface.
One of the most successful divingsupportvessels of the 1980s was the SSSV Uncle John operated by Comex Houlder diving.