PC divers keeping sub races safe

WEST BETHESDA, Md. - Hundreds of students come from around the world to Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock (Md.) Division here to race human-powered submarines they have designed and built for the command’s annual International Human-Powered Submarine Races (ISR). The event will run through June 30 in the area’s David Taylor Model Basin. The ISR has been a premier science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) event for 28 years. Sailors assigned to the Navy’s primary source of diving and hyperbaric operational guidance from Panama City, Fla., are on station in the basin to ensure and maintain safety, The event is “inherently dangerous because of what can happen during the races,” said Chief Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician Ralph Schmitz, the special warfare diving leading chief petty officer for Navy Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU) from Panama City. Competing students are underwater in their craft during the race. “If their primary air source (scuba) fails when you’re in 20 feet of water, what do you do? For us, dealing with a situation like that is almost second nature. It’s what we do.” NEDU Panama City is the Navy’s leading center for diving research, development, and testing and evaluation, also providing physiological and engineering solutions for undersea operations. (Source: NSWC Carderock 06/29/17)