The International Marine Contractors Association’s (IMCA) newly published ‘Guidance on Health, Fitness and Medical Issues in Diving Operations’ (IMCA D 061) has been prepared in response to concerns about how best to address certain problematic diver health, fitness and medical issues identified by IMCA’s Diving Division members.

Two large Quebec institutional entities in Canada’s French-speaking province have announced that they are taking a minority stake totaling C$112 million, invested in equal amounts, in Ocean Group, a maritime enterprise based in Quebec City specializing in harbor towing, dredging, marine equipment rental, shipbuilding and repair. The financial institutions involved are the Caisse de depot et placement du Québec, which manages funds for public pension plans, and the Fonds de Solidarité (FTQ).

When Navy Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Dunaway surfaced from a dive off a barge at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek earlier this week, Petty Officer First Class Ben Coulson logged the time by clicking a red box on a ruggedized tablet computer. While those actions may seem unremarkable for those accustomed to the myriad ways technology now streamlines mundane day-to-day duties, until now, military divers have relied on manually logging their dive data, a time-consuming process that’s open to data-entry errors and sometimes left to the whims of the weather.

Mark your calendars for February 5-7, 2019, as Underwater Intervention returns to New Orleans. This is the must-attend event of the year for the entire underwater operations industry. Registration is open now, so make sure to visit www.underwaterintervention.com to register or for more information about UI2019.

As a valued industry stakeholder, your participation is vital to the outcome of this study. As you know, our communications offerings include UnderWater magazine, UnderWater Today e-newsletter, ADCI Advisory Notice, ADCI TV, our websites, ADCI Membership Directory, Online Buyers' Guide, conferences, social media offerings and more. The link to our survey can be found here and your responses will be kept in strict confidence. With your help, the association will gain a better understanding of how we are communicating with our members and stakeholders in today's constantly changing environment. Your participation in this survey will also help us identify a definitive set of best practices that will help us communicate with you even more efficiently than we have done so already. Again, the survey will take approximately 10 to 15 minutes to complete. I look forward to continuing to provide more value, more services and more benefits to you throughout the coming ADCI membership year!

The September/October issue of Underwater Magazine is online now. This issue features an article discussing Extreme Rescue & Recovery Operations, an overview of the Gulf of Mexico Subsea Market Outlook for 2019, a History of Dive Lab, Inc. and much more. All of this in the latest issue of Underwater Magazine.

UNDERWATER Magazine and the ADCI are looking to continue their library of industry-related images. If you have any great pictures of commercial divers, job sites, equipment, or anything else related to the industry that you would be willing to share and possibly see published in an upcoming issue of UNDERWATER Magazine please contact Steve Guglielmo at sguglielmo@naylor.com

Subsea cable and connector specialist Hydro Group, alongside its French regional partner Wenex Equipements, has successfully completed its scope of work on the SEM-REV marine renewable energy project in only seven months.

The ways in which subsea supply chain companies can work together to improve the competitiveness of the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) will be explored at an event in Aberdeen next month. Organised by the Oil and Gas UK Efficiency Task Force (ETF) in partnership with Subsea UK and Scottish Enterprise, the seminar will highlight and share methods of best practice for standardisation and simplification across the industry.

The record-setting dive took place in a deep-water range in the Sea of Japan from aboard the Pacific Fleet's new submarine rescue ship, the Igor Belousov, and was carried out using new technology allowing divers to withstand more than 40 times the Earth's atmospheric pressure.

UNDERWATER Magazine has begun work on its January/February Issue of the magazine. Each year in this issue, the magazine features an ROV/AUV Pictorial. If you are an ROV manufacturer and would like to see your company's products featured in this issue, please send pictures to sguglielmo@naylor.com. To see last year's pictorial, click below.