Recommended Skippers and Centres
My club has used a number of skippers and dive centres. Here are some of the ones I have had personal experience of using and would recommend as offering good service and excellent diving. This list is is no way an official endorsement by the British Sub-Aqua Club or the Putney branch. It's just my personal opinion. For a more comprehensive list of UK hardboat skippers see the UK Hardboat Skippers page maintained by Matt Wood.
Old Harbour Dive Centre and School
Based in Weymouth and run by the very capable and friendly Ian Fuller. Very flexible about taking different numbers of divers out on RIBS. Good for spur of the moment diving. I did my boat handling course there, but they do all sorts of other skill development courses and BS-AC, PADI and RYA training. Ian is an ex-North Sea diver and really knows his stuff.
01305 761666
Tim Bennetto
Skipper of the Spartacus. Boat is based in Brighton marina. He is an excellent skipper, and the boat is good for diving. Last January we couldn't fill his boat because it was snowing, so he only charged us on a per-diver basis. This was very generous considering he still used the same amount of fuel.
01273 586445 (home)
0860 209367 (mobile)
Richard ?
Skipper of the Likely Lad. Found us some lovely diving spots off the South Devon coast including a beaut of a dive on the new wreck Demetreus which is only partly submerged.
01548 852934
Porthkerris Divers
Ideal for diving Manacle rocks off the Lizard, Cornwall. We dived off a new RIB with twin Mariner 75's - very nippy. They also have a remarkable US army surplus amphibious vehicle with caterpillar tracks which they use to launch and recover boats (£5 charge). When two of our divers were ten minues overdue the skipper dealt with the situation very cool-headedly and put the Coastguard on alert. (The divers were recovered shortly afterwards two miles down the coast - their SMB had failed to reach to the surface and they did a very long decompression stop.)
01326 280620
Please e-mail me if you have had a bad experience with any of these people, or I've got anything wrong
Tim Rogers Diving Page