How Many Students Can
You Guide at One Time?

When it comes to actually taking your students diving (as opposed to keeping them stationary on a training platform and watching them freeze), how many students can you or one of your assistants effectively guide under water at one time? “Well, standards say…” Well, who cares?

Just because standards say you can guide six, eight or even ten students at one time doesn’t mean you should.

I can’t tell you the number of times, in just the past year, I’ve seen instructors get into real difficulty because they thought that, just because they had a class of six students to teach, they were somehow compelled to take all six diving at once. Doh!

As a point of comparison, in Hawai’i, where visibility was generally in excess of 80 feet or more, it was company policy that our instructors guided no more than six certified divers at one time, and no more than four students, under any circumstances.

Visibility is the Key

Ultimately, the maximum number of students you can safely and effectively guide under water is dictated by visibility.

According to both common sense and standards, to maintain adequate control and supervision of entry-level students, you must be able to see the students clearly at all times.

What this means is that, in an environment where the visibility may only be ten feet or less, the maximum number of students you can guide might be as many as four — but more likely it is as little as two.

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