IMCA diving contractor Member makes “unbelievable” donation to the world’s last remaining saturation diving school

IMCA Member Shelf Subsea Australia has been praised for its “unbelievable” generosity after donating offshore-standard diving equipment to help support the world’s last remaining saturation diving school – the Commercial Diving Academy (CDA) in Tasmania, Australia.

Offshore diver training schools play an essential role in supplying the marine contracting and offshore energy sectors with well-trained commercial divers. Despite this, CDA is now the only school offering training in saturation diving following the closures of centres in Scotland in 2018 and France in 2024 due to financial challenges.

Alan Strong, owner and managing director of CDA, said the donation, made by Peter Evans on behalf of Shelf Subsea Australia, would provide essential equipment for the school and would support its expansion into Western Australia, where the industry’s last diver training school closed almost a decade ago.

Alan Strong, owner and managing director of CDA, said: “It is with great gratitude that I want to thank Peter for putting his hand deep into Shelf Subsea Australia’s pockets to provide this huge financial and technical assistance to CDA Australia – a gift of training equipment up to real offshore standards. 

“It is an unbelievable contribution to our training establishment and thanks doesn’t really convey enough our gratitude. Recognition and thanks must go out to Peter Evans and Shelf Subsea for this selfless act.”

The offshore air dive spread includes a containerised deck decompression chamber, three diver control panels including a video system and cameras, comms boxes, umbilicals, and a matching machinery container with a hydraulic power unit and generator. Shelf Subsea Australia also donated a 20ft gas reclaim system – used to reclaim helium from the heliox breathed by divers.

Peter Evans, Managing Director at Shelf Subsea Australia said: “With the shift in Western Australia to deep ROV-based decommissioning work, Shelf had several IMCA-compliant air spreads idle and needing a good home. 

“This presented Shelf with the opportunity to give back to our industry and support diver training with the donation of an operational and complete offshore air spread. At the same time, Alan spied an unused gas transfer machinery van in our workshop and asked the obvious question… and the rest is history!”