The A Test

[pete stiff]

Hi All,
I have heard of the A test but not been diving long enough to had to have done it. As I am planning a skills based fun evening at our club I was wondering if anyone had any information about this dreaded test, as it could prove to have some interesting elements in it !!. Perhaps in the olden days divers were fitter / or just more determined.
Regards
Pete

[Andy Wade]

Hi All,
I have heard of the A test but not been diving long enough to had to have done it. As I am planning a skills based fun evening at our club I was wondering if anyone had any information about this dreaded test, as it could prove to have some interesting elements in it !!. Perhaps in the olden days divers were fitter / or just more determined.

Divers were (on the whole) fitter.
We had to be. The equipment we had was pretty basic by today's standards. Thin suits, single cylinders with no backups, we had to reply a lot more on our buddy and we often dived with scant boat cover and long snorkel swims to wreck sites.
The old training scheme reflected this and the changes have reflected advances in knowledge and equipment over the years. Now almost anyone can enjoy diving and that is indeed a good thing IMO.
If memory serves correctly, the old 'A' Test was:
200 metres swim on the front.
100 metres swim on the back.
50 metres on the front wearing a weightbelt - 10lbs IIRC. (This could be reduced for smaller people or those with a low bouyancy index)
Float on your back for 5 minutes (A small amount of hand and leg movement permitted).
Tread water for one minute with hands above the head.
6 duck dives to retrieve objects from 2 metres depth (I think) usually a lead weight chucked back in each time.
Maybe someone with a better memory can tell me if I've got it all correct?

I used to do this every week before the training sesion started. It took me about 14/15 minutes.
I was as fit as a butchers dog then ;-)
Not any more ;-(


.

[richard scarsbrook]

Maybe someone with a better memory can tell me if I've got it all correct?


No better memory, but ownership of the 1980 edition of the Diving Manual. It's almost as you say Andy, but here it is verbatim.

"All tests in this group to be completed without equipment.
Group A
1. Swim 200m freestyle (except backstroke) without a stop.
2. Swim 100m backstroke without a stop.
3. Swim 50m wearing a 5 kg weight-belt.
4. Float on back for 5 minutes (hand and leg movement permitted).
5. Tread water with hands above head for one minute.
6. Recover 6 objects from deep end of training pool (one dive per object).
N.B.-Item 3-Weight may be reduced for junior or female members, or for those with a low buoyancy index."

Richard

[Gordon Nimmo]

There are a couple of divers in my club who have been diving since before 1980 and the tests they had to do then put the swimming tests now to shame.

Im really surprised as I would have expected the diving organisations to have more of an emphisis on wanting the divers to be 'Dive' fit, both for their own saftey and that of their buddy. Hands up here who would want to be a buddy to a overweight couch potato who guzzles air at 6m?? Nah, didnt think so cos if anything hit the fan can you see him towing you to the Rib? Aye right...

[John Cale]

It's pretty much as everyone's described.

There was standing joke in our club that if you could do it in the dark under machine gun fire you were automatically accepted into the SBS. I did it aged 14 in the early 80's. Don't recall it being too hard, except for the 50m in a weight belt. I'd hate to do it now though.

[Nigel Hewitt]

Nah, didnt think so cos if anything hit the fan can you see him towing you to the Rib? Aye right...

Yes but the standards of the old tests covered them for towing the RIB to you.

I'm not a particularly good swimmer but I'm OK in the water and I wear dirty great fins on my feet so free style/back stroke doesn't enter the equation. In fact the knowledge that I didn't enjoy swimming was one of the reasons I was so surprised that I took to diving so abruptly.

[mike_firth]

:=Hi All,
:=I have heard of the A test but not been diving long enough to had to have done it. As I am planning a skills based fun evening at our club I was wondering if anyone had any information about this dreaded test, as it could prove to have some interesting elements in it !!. Perhaps in the olden days divers were fitter / or just more determined.

Divers were (on the whole) fitter.
We had to be. The equipment we had was pretty basic by today's standards. Thin suits, single cylinders with no backups, we had to reply a lot more on our buddy and we often dived with scant boat cover and long snorkel swims to wreck sites.
The old training scheme reflected this and the changes have reflected advances in knowledge and equipment over the years. Now almost anyone can enjoy diving and that is indeed a good thing IMO.
If memory serves correctly, the old 'A' Test was:
200 metres swim on the front.
100 metres swim on the back.
50 metres on the front wearing a weightbelt - 10lbs IIRC. (This could be reduced for smaller people or those with a low bouyancy index)
Float on your back for 5 minutes (A small amount of hand and leg movement permitted).
Tread water for one minute with hands above the head.
6 duck dives to retrieve objects from 2 metres depth (I think) usually a lead weight chucked back in each time.
Maybe someone with a better memory can tell me if I've got it all correct?

I used to do this every week before the training sesion started. It took me about 14/15 minutes.
I was as fit as a butchers dog then ;-)
Not any more ;-(

Spot on old boy you must be old like me youre right of course fit as hell not like the softees today

Mike


.

[Gordon Nimmo]

:=Nah, didnt think so cos if anything hit the fan can you see him towing you to the Rib? Aye right...

Yes but the standards of the old tests covered them for towing the RIB to you.


Yeah, sorry, what I really should have put was your buddy towing you to the shore from a shore dive. You are right as the Rib would be making its way to you.

I would not have minded all the older fitness tests....it would certainly keep you on your feet with a high level of fitness.

[Mike Rowley]

Yes but the standards of the old tests covered them for towing the RIB to you.

We didn't have rhibs in those days Nigel, only floppies with glorified seagulls on the back! When the seagull failed and it was windy you had to swim like hell to catch up with the floppy! Then of course there were the shore dives, usually after a cliff climb down to the sea in full kit with another post dive climb up in wet kit. Now those were the days!

I recall one particularly empathetic examiner informing me that I was reguired to surface swim five widths of Stoney Cove in full kit. The final swim back was optional as there was always the cliff to climb!

Mike

[allan j bretherton]

:=

Yes Mike, but that was when men were men and sheep were afraid :-)

Cheers.........Allan

:=Yes but the standards of the old tests covered them for towing the RIB to you.

We didn't have rhibs in those days Nigel, only floppies with glorified seagulls on the back! When the seagull failed and it was windy you had to swim like hell to catch up with the floppy! Then of course there were the shore dives, usually after a cliff climb down to the sea in full kit with another post dive climb up in wet kit. Now those were the days!

I recall one particularly empathetic examiner informing me that I was reguired to surface swim five widths of Stoney Cove in full kit. The final swim back was optional as there was always the cliff to climb!

Mike

[Lakeland]

It's pretty much as everyone's described.

There was standing joke in our club that if you could do it in the dark under machine gun fire you were automatically accepted into the SBS. I did it aged 14 in the early 80's. Don't recall it being too hard, except for the 50m in a weight belt. I'd hate to do it now though.

This is starting to sound like a BSAC version of the Monty Python " Three Yorkshiremen " sketch,as in:-

"Air !! You 'ad air in t'tank ? We 'ad carbon monoxide and were bloody grateful for it ! Then, when we swam nine miles across the bay the DO would pull all our 'eads off and tell us run to Inverness for a bacon butty.

You only'ad to swin 5 times round Stoney Cove ?? You were lucky... "

I could carry on and offend a few more folks, but I can hear Matron calling...