Jane Bugler to speak at Canadian Underwater Conference

Published on 4 April 2014

Jane Bugler, Technical Director of the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) will be speaking on ‘IMCA Offshore – Changes to Guidance’ at the 2014 Canadian Underwater Conference and Exhibition with its theme ‘Man and Machine Underwater’, being held in Toronto on 6-8 April 2014.

“I will be covering our most recent Diving Division guidance documents, all of them designed to aid risk management and to ensure maximum efficiency and levels of safety,” she explains.”First on the agenda will be hyperbaric evacuation.

“Although IMCA D 024 – ‘DESIGN (Diving Equipment Systems Inspection Guidance Note) for saturation (bell) diving systems’ contained a small section covering hyperbaric evacuation, it was agreed that the IMCA hyperbaric workgroup should develop a separate comprehensive DESIGN document to cover all aspects of hyperbaric evacuation systems (HES) when IMCA D 024 was revised and updated in March 2013.

“A draft of the separate DESIGN document covering HES (IMCA D 053) was sent out for industry-wide consultation. The hyperbaric workgroup is now considering the feedback received with the aim of finalising the document for publication by the end of Q1 2014 – so just at the time of the Toronto conference.

“One significant request was made by the Diving Division Management Committee at its most recent meeting. This was to incorporate all the elements of an HES, with the exception of the hyperbaric rescue facility (HRF), back into IMCA D 024. This was considered to be both sensible and convenient for diving system auditors. It is therefore likely that, when published, IMCA D 053 will deal solely with the DESGIN audit of HRFs. All other aspects of hyperbaric evacuation systems will appear in a revised IMCA D 024.”

Jane Bugler will also discuss the updates and changes to DESIGN. Changes to D 014 the ‘IMCA International Code of Practice for Offshore Diving’ (available in English, Brazilian Portuguese, Latin American Spanish and Chinese) will also come under the conference spotlight.

“The Code has been updated mainly to reflect the contents of, and to make reference to, current IMCA guidance documents which are either new, or have been updated since the 2007 revision,” Jane Bugler explains.”The text has also been updated to include more references to diving management and hyperbaric evacuation.

“I will also be telling delegates about the importance of our safety flash system and how we use the information not only to help people learn from others’ experiences, but also to update our documents – recent examples include and update to our guidance on underwater air liftbags, subsea lifting and rigging.”