Introducing GUE’s new CCR Fundamentals Course

By Graham Blackmore

Closed Circuit Rebreather (CCR) Fundamentals is here – It is a CCR class you can do if you’re a Technical Fundamentals diver.

Global Underwater Explorers (GUE) ran its first CCR classes in August, 2013, and this initial iteration required a Technical Diver Level 2 pass for entry. The class was always intended to be followed by a level 2 CCR class. It took until 2019 to finalise this Level 2 CCR course, with  instructors and classes following shortly afterwards. At this point, CCR became CCR1 and the entry point was changed to Technical Diver 1 and 25 open circuit (OC) technical dives.

Richard Lundgren, my predecessor as director of tech and CCR, taught the first beta CCR classes with GUE founder and president Jarrod Jablonski. The students were experienced and active technical and cave instructors like Bob Sherwood, Mario Arena, Guy Shockey, Mark Messersmith, Kirill Egorov, Gideon Liew and many more, including even me. Richard was the driving force of the CCR program, bringing together all of the available knowledge and packaging it into a curriculum. He brought in new ideas —like predive sequences and checklists attached to tanks. Dave Thompson from JJ-CCR audited one of the early classes to make sure we weren’t going to do anything stupid.

Over the last 10 years, GUE’s understanding of how to teach rebreathers has progressed, and the whole dive industry has changed. Initially, GUE and our community were sceptical of electronic rebreathers and, in fact, early adopters were often asked if they were bringing their “Tamagotchi” when arranging diving with friends. We strongly believed that a solid open-circuit background would be essential for being a good CCR diver, hence the Technical Diver Level 2 entry point. Also, 10 years ago, helium was much more readily available and lower in cost than today’s prices.

About two years ago, following frequent conversations with Derk Remmers and Kirill, I raised the topic with Jarrod about changing the entry point for the CCR course and making it an efficient training path for those wishing to do deep CCR technical diving. After Derk and I taught over 100 CCR classes —and consulted with other active instructors—we discovered that open circuit experience did not always make for a better CCR diver. In some cases, it was quite the opposite. When taught properly, less experienced divers may do well learning how to dive a CCR. Now, when we add the challenge of logistics for helium, there seems no reason to force a diver to do open circuit classes (e.g., Technical Diver 1) and gain more OC experience before starting to use a CCR, particularly if the goal is long deep dives where CCR is the right tool for the job.

The idea of CCR Fundamentals was born, although it was called a number of other things before we settled on the current naming. The entry point for this class is a modest pass at the Technical Fundamentals level (formerly known as a GUE Fundamentals Tech Pass before program changes). If we consider our starting point of CCR training, this is obviously a huge change in direction for GUE and will surely create much debate, particularly among those already invested in GUE’s training system.

Let’s start with what the program change is not: a “Technical Diver 1 killer.” Closed Circuit Rebreather Fundamentals Diver and Closed Circuit Rebreather Technical Diver Level 1 (more on that later) are intended to run alongside their open circuit counterparts. Technical Diver 1 is not going away; it will remain a fantastic class, and divers should not feel the need to buy an expensive piece of equipment to venture into deeper technical dives. In fact, for many divers, Technical Diver 1 is probably still the best option as a class for progression after GUE Fundamentals. Unless divers are regularly tech diving—an arbitrary number of 10 or so times a year seems right—then open circuit diving is probably going to be way cheaper, way less hassle, and, perhaps most importantly, (arguably) safer.

We’ve introduced CCR Fundamentals Diver for those who wish to do closed circuit rebreather diving; for these divers, it is going to be way easier to progress to technical diving without extensive open circuit training. The tipping point, except for the most regular of 50 m/170 ft divers, is going to be level 2 exposures, here dives will incur decompression times of around one hour and probably be in the 60m/ 200ft range. Once our diving progresses to three hours of decompression and is in the 90m/ 300ft range, then CCR is clearly the best way to dive. We can also consider rebreather diving in those ranges to be safer then the open circuit equivalent.

The focus of CCR Fundamentals is core skills with a standardised configuration (no BOV).  Gas plans and reserves have been simplified and increased to give more safety. Divers will certainly want to add helium and do some decompression. Still, the Closed Circuit Rebreather Fundamentals Diver class is designed as a stepping stone and as such only uses nitrox mixtures. Dives stay within minimum decompression limits with a maximum depth of 30m/100ft until appropriate experience and capacity are gained for technical training on the rebreather.  We have decided to introduce “the small rig” where manifolded double 3L /23 cu ft diluent and a smaller oxygen bottle can be used instead of bigger configurations suitable for more advanced dives. The last point of the CCR  Fundamentals Diver class is that it has limited failure resolution and no scenario-based learning where, after faults are identified, divers would bail out and end the dive safely. This class and others in this program change align well with ISO standards.

Unfortunately, it is not quite as simple as introducing this new class, CCR Fundamentals Diver (CCR-F), as there are many complications caused by doing so. Divers will be keen to know how to transition to technical diving after CCR-F, and those that have completed Technical Diver Level 1 will be wondering if they now will now be penalised accordingly having to do an extra CCR class to reach the same point in their education as before. The course chart in Fig 1 shows the new CCR and tech structure.

CCR Fundamentals Divers will be able to enroll in a CCR Technical Diver Level 1 after 50 hours of dive experience. CCR Technical Diver Level 1 is a new class where divers will learn how to plan and execute a technical dive on the rebreather and extend into decompression diving at depths up to 51m /170ft. New skills like teamwork, both open-circuit and closed-circuit failure handling, and decompression will be taught and mastered during this class. In fact, the content will be analogous to a Technical Diver Level 1 course. 

As such, the CCR Fundamentals Diver class should be viewed as a step towards technical diving and not considered an endpoint. Rebreathers aren’t necessary for recreational range dives and are tools for deeper, longer diving, where the their cost and complexity are offset by their benefits.

Divers who already have a Technical Diver Level 1 rating and experience will have many of the skills needed to do technical diving on a closed circuit rebreather. If they would like to progress into CCR1 Technical Level  1, they will still need to learn how to use a rebreather, so they should first take the CCR Fundamentals Diver class. Due to their previous qualifications, their path to technical diving on a CCR will be shorter. After gathering experience, they can take an upgrade class, which will allow them to assess their diving capacity and cover any missing knowledge, such as CCR failures and technical skills, like ascents, bailing out with decompression obligation, and conducting decompression.

The introduction of CCR Technical Diver Level 1 and upgrade class will fix one of the loopholes of the current CCR program, whereby on completion of CCR Level 1, the divers are certified to dive to 51m / 170 ft with up to 30 minutes of decompression on a CCR without being verified during a actual deeper dive if there is appropriate capacity. Up till now the extension of the CCR 1 into technical depth (51m / 170 ft) was based on declared additional experience after the class. We have seen divers often struggle with technical diving skills during CCR 2 classes (now renamed as CCR Technical Diver Level 2), and the change in program is hoped to address this and allow for more learning and building competency in higher level classes.

Lastly, we aim to achieve CCR and Open Circuit cross-capability. CCR Technical Level 1 Divers will be trained to dive to 51m/170 ft with 30 minutes of decompression and will be able to bail out to an open circuit to end the dive safely, but they will not currently be qualified to do the dive on the open circuit (so the CCR-T1 will not be eligible to do OC dives within a Tech 1 range). However, both CCR technical classes (CCR-T1 and CCR-T2) will have a component that allows Open Circuit qualification for those wishing/needing it.

I hope our students will enjoy this new structure as much as I have enjoyed putting it together with the help of numerous colleagues, notably Jarrod Jablonski, Kirill Egorov, Mario Arena, Kees Beemster Leverenz, Derk Remmers, Guy Shockey and John Kendall. 

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Graham Blackmore, GUE’s technical and CCR program director, is a lifelong diver with a deep-seated passion for the ocean. Born and raised near the sea in the UK, he pursued his fascination with marine life by earning a PhD in Marine Biology. However, his true calling lies in the underwater world, leading him to a career as a global diving instructor and explorer. While he enjoys all aspects of diving, his British heritage lends him a particular fondness for wreck diving.