Ian Moore – Qualifying at SETT every four years

You’re supposed to qualify every four years, so every four years you’re expected to get your backside up to the Tank again.

They go through it, it’s a two-day course.

The first day they teach you all about submarine escape and go through it all again and you practice a few bits and pieces, and then the second day, you’re actually in the Tank itself and they will first of all teach you how to breathe out so you’ll get into the top of the Tank and just sit on the top of the water and the Swim Boys will actually teach you to blow out properly, as to what they’re expecting. And then you’ll be taken down into the 30-foot lock.

So that’s 30 feet down and you’ll go into this capsule, probably four or five at a time, and then they will flood it up, they will introduce high pressure air and equalise it with the pressure of the water out the other side, and then they will open the door and then you get that time honoured thing that every single Submariner will hear.

“Take a good, deep breath.”

The Instructor will have his hand on the top of your head, he will push you backwards and down and backwards out into the Tank itself. You’re wearing a belt with a couple of straps hanging off it.

The Swim Boys will grab hold of each of those straps, they will look at you and you’ll prove to them that you can actually breath out properly as you’ve been taught, and then they’ll release you, and on the side of the Tank, you’ll hear them tap.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, so you get this tap, tap, I can even hear it to this day. Like a hollow sound like tapping inside a metal tube.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, and then they’ll release you and let you float up to the surface, breathing out all the way to the surface.

You’ll do that a couple of times from 30 foot and then you’ll do a 60 foot and then you’ll do the 100 foot.