Divemaster

A Divemaster (DM) is a recreational diving role which includes organising and leading recreational dives, particularly in a professional capacity, and is a qualification used throughout most of the world in recreational scuba diving for a diver who has supervisory responsibility for a group of divers. As well as being a generic term, Divemaster is the title of the first professional rating of many training agencies, such as PADI, SSI, SDI, NASE, except NAUI, which rates a NAUI Divemaster just under an Instructor but above an Assistant Instructor. The Divemaster certification is generally equivalent to the requirements of international Standard ISO 24801-3.

The BSAC recognizes several agencies' Divemaster certificates as equivalent to BSAC Dive Leader, but not to BSAC Advanced Diver. The converse may not be true.

The certification is a prerequisite for training as an instructor in recreational diving with most agencies except NAUI, where it is an optional step, because of the different position of the NAUI Divemaster in the NAUI hierarchy.

The role of a Divemaster may vary, but will generally include the following roles:

The legal duty of care of a divemaster to a client varies according to the legislation of the country, where it is often poorly defined. The use of waivers and/or assumption of risk forms that are intended to minimize legal accountability of divemasters is a common practice, but the validity of such waivers will vary with the legislation.

The following certifications are recognised as meeting or exceeding the requirements of EN/ISO 24801-3:2014:

In technical diving, divers are assumed to be competent and responsible for their own safety or the safety of the team of which they are members to the extent that is agreed by that team. However it is not unusual for a technical team or expedition group to appoint one of their number as a team leader or surface dive marshall, but the surface marshall is often more of an administrative position, who will check divers into and out of the water, and the dive team leader is more the navigator, or the person in front of the group than someone making safety decisions for other divers.

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