Team background

The Rockwater 1 is a diving support vessel mainly employed in the oil related industries. 6 of our guys on the cycle challenge are ‘saturation divers’. The ship supports both ‘saturation diving’ (where the divers live in pressurised chambers for the duration of their time onboard – typically up to 28 days); and the other type of diving is called ‘surface supplied diving’, where the divers return to normal pressure after their time in the water.

Diving bell or “taxi” which takes saturation divers to the sea bed

Returning to normal pressure after surface supplied diving
We also have an ROV – Remote Operated Vehicle – which does as it says on the tin; observes things underwater remotely and controlled by joystick.

Our crew on the ship when at work is around 94 persons with good family orientated values. There are a number of ships in our company’s fleet and along with the associated offices, support staff, etc all (or as many as we can manage) are going to be seeing our posters on their notice boards. From this we are hoping to see a good response from all over the UK (and possibly beyond) on the sponsorship front.

The posters are also going up in the local areas of the guys taking part and that of our home area and at our daughter Jennifer’s university. We fully realise that doing this event is not just about sponsorship and fundraising, but also to raise the awareness of these conditions that may be ticking away inside many young and apparently fit young people.

We are planning to approach venues such as schools, colleges, universities, sport centres, youth clubs etc with a request to display our posters. If we can prevent anyone else suffering the pain we are feeling, then the efforts will be worth it.

Ian, Jessie and Jennifer Cadman