page_title: Surface-supplied diving skills
section_title: Stage diving procedures
hierarchical_section_title: Surface-supplied diving skills / Stage diving procedures
caption_attribution_description: English: Two divers ride a stage to the sea bed from MSC rescue and salvage ship USNS Grasp in St. Kitts during Global Fleet Station 2008. Photo by MCCS Andrew McKaskle.
context_page_description: Surface supplied diving skills are the skills and procedures required for the safe operation and use of surface-supplied diving equipment. Besides these skills, which may be categorised as standard operating procedures, emergency procedures and rescue procedures, there are the actual working skills required to do the job, and the procedures for safe operation of the work equipment other than diving equipment that may be needed.
  Some of the skills are common to all types of surface-supplied equipment and deployment modes, others are specific to the type of bell or stage, or to saturation diving. There are other skills required of divers which apply to the surface support function, and some of those are also mentioned here.
context_section_description: A diving stage or basket is used to lower divers to the underwater work site and raise them back to the surface after the dive. This provides a relatively safe and easy way of entering the water and getting out again onto the deployment platform. In-water decompression is facilitated as the stage can be held at a reasonably constant depth. The divers' umbilicals are continuous and are tended from the surface.
  When divers leave the stage to work underwater under normal conditions they leave from the opposite side to that on which they entered, ensuring that their umbilicals pass through the framework of the stage, so they can be sure of finding their way back to the stage at the end of the dive. If it is necessary for any reason to abandon the stage, the divers leave it on the same side that they entered, so that the umbilicals do not pass through the stage, and can be used to lift or lead the divers to the surface.
caption: Two divers ride a stage to the underwater workplace
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