RAID has announced a major update to their sidemount courses. The change affects the Diver and Instructor levels.
The key changes on the Diver side of things include:
- Two manuals, one covering equipment, and one covering in water skills.
- 3 quizzes and a final exam.
- Manuals include quizzes, skills needed to complete the course.
- Minimum dive requirements: 1 confined water session, and 2 open water dives.
- Minimum dive times is 1 hour for confined training and 3 hours for open water training.
On the Instructor side of the program, the whole contents have been updated, adding flexibility to the instructors, so that they can have differences in the style of sidemount they teach, as well as giving them the flexibility to complete skills when the student is ready. Once students have completed all the skills in confined water in the minimum time, they can progress to open water training.
In addition to the above, the course can be combined with a variety of other courses both recreational and technical as long as all hours and criteria for both courses are met.
Find out the full details of the changes here.
