max depth with standard air

[String]

They're probably remembering it differently than it happened. I think the depth record for air is in the 350ft range and requires a lot of planning, a lot of decompression and from what I hear some kind of breath-hold technique to avoid O2 toxicity.

R..

...and no small degree of luck

 

[Scuba_Vixen]

But perhaps divers are generally smarter than some appear ...

There are numerous records set and surpassed for deep air in the 400's .... Gilliam at 464' comes to mind, but it's since been surpassed...

Guiness no longer allows new records here since more divers die than succeed in new records.

Most who were doing those deep air exploits had Hundreds of dives in the 300's as training dives for the 400'+ dives ... The adaptation to narcosis thing is a whole 'nother thread ...


Many of the notables are still with us today: Bret Gilliam, Tom Mount, Hal Watts, Jim Lockwood,.... others, like Exley, Gunderson, are not ...

Many of the deep air dives were done on single tanks, least task loading and most streamlining, very rapid descents and essentially bounce dives .....

Descents and ascents were very fast, about 100ft/min (up to deco stop depth)

Just for grits and shins, I tried a dive to 310' on air in one of the planners programs ..... if you didn't die from an ox-tox seizure, or pass out or loose control from narcosois, it does indeed look like you could do the dive and deco on air with a single 80 ..... ScareyThought, lol

I used the rapid descent & ascent rates typical of the early record attempts....

DIVE PLAN
Surface interval = 100 day 0 hr 0 min.
Elevation = 0ft
Conservatism = Nominal

Dec to 200ft (2) on Air, 100ft/min descent.
Dec to 310ft (3) on Air, 100ft/min descent.
Level 310ft 0:24 (3) on Air, 2.18 ppO2, 310ft ead
Asc to 20ft (6) on Air, -100ft/min ascent.
Stop at 20ft 0:36 (7) on Air, 0.34 ppO2, 20ft ead
Stop at 10ft 2:00 (9) on Air, 0.27 ppO2, 10ft ead
Asc to sfc. (9) on Air, -100ft/min ascent.

Off gassing starts at 78.1ft

OTU's this dive: 10
CNS Total: 144.3%

25.4 cu ft Air
25.4 cu ft TOTAL


If you slow the ascent/descent rate, it really makes a difference...

DIVE PLAN
Surface interval = 100 day 0 hr 0 min.
Elevation = 0ft
Conservatism = Nominal

Dec to 200ft (3) on Air, 60ft/min descent.
Dec to 310ft (5) on Air, 60ft/min descent.
Level 310ft 0:20 (5) on Air, 2.18 ppO2, 310ft ead
Asc to 70ft (13) on Air, -30ft/min ascent.
Stop at 70ft 1:30 (15) on Air, 0.65 ppO2, 70ft ead
Stop at 60ft 2:00 (17) on Air, 0.59 ppO2, 60ft ead
Stop at 50ft 1:00 (18) on Air, 0.53 ppO2, 50ft ead
Stop at 40ft 2:00 (20) on Air, 0.46 ppO2, 40ft ead
Stop at 30ft 3:00 (23) on Air, 0.40 ppO2, 30ft ead
Stop at 20ft 4:00 (27) on Air, 0.34 ppO2, 20ft ead
Stop at 10ft 7:00 (34) on Air, 0.27 ppO2, 10ft ead
Asc to sfc. (34) on Air, -30ft/min ascent.

Off gassing starts at 121.8ft

OTU's this dive: 22
CNS Total: 282.5%

72.1 cu ft Air
72.1 cu ft TOTAL


DISCLAIMER: If you try this, you will most likely die .... Do Not do this at home kids.

As for the credibility of the 310' tales, I'd have to hear a lot more details of the profiles and physiological experiences before I'd take them as gospel.

Darlene

 

[100days-a-year]

Several onboard SB have done it but don't talk about it as many Darwin candidates will try to emulate.The depth records are significantly deeper than that.A single 80 is not a good idea at any depth where deco is a probability with short exposure.Next time somone gives you a story like that,look at them derisively and say"so what".BTW anything but deep regular breating like taught in OW class will lead to elevated CO2 and probly increased narcosis.

 

[DandyDon]

A freind of mine goes to Cozumel each year and the dive charter he uses allows "experienced" divers to do deep dives, just to say they did it. Then of course they get a cute little plaque with the max depth on it. He did 280 ft one year on air, single tank, with the buddy/DM hanging up around 150 ft.

Personally I think it ranks right up there at the top of the list of really stupid things to do on your dive vacation.

I'd really like to know which operator that - so I can totally avoid them. Any so-called professionals who would do that with a cusotmer would do other stupid things with others. I'm dangerous enough by nature; :439: don't need any help.

If anyone here ever things about doing this, please use a 120 cu ft tank, and plan on returning with over 1,000 lbs. You'll still die, but make it look like you tried to live. :crossbone

don

 

[nyresq]

here are a couple of links to an article writen by Bob Raimo, a tec diver/instructor in NY. Bob was one of the unlucky guys who got bent on the uwatec computers before they were recalled.
he describes in this article doing extream deep air...

http://www.subaqua.co.uk/reference/wah-wah.shtml

http://www.wahoo2001.com/BobRaimo/wahwahdive.htm

 

[ScubaSky]

Doesn't Dive Any More Huh? Did you ask him Why? Maybe the SCUBA Police took his License away

 

[sharkmasterbc]

I definetly agree that the level of narcosis changes from diver to diver, also from day to day. I begin to feel really euphoric and stupid around about 170 on air...not that I do this on a regular basis...but it was definetly a learning experiance, under the proper conditions you can greatly reduce the risk.
But my question is why ??? If you really want to go deep, get the proper training, equipment, buddy and experiance. As already stated the max depth on air is 187fsw beond that you increase the chance of oxtox...and that would be just plain dumb.

 

[String]

One reason is trimix is far from cheap. People will dive to certain depths on air purely for economic reasons - ie it would be impossible to afford to dive that deep on trimix all the time.

We dont live in an ideal world.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

One reason is trimix is far from cheap. People will dive to certain depths on air purely for economic reasons - ie it would be impossible to afford to dive that deep on trimix all the time.

We dont live in an ideal world.

I agree with you there. The availability of trimx and trimix training in SD is severely limited. I'd have to spend bg bucks to travel a couple states away to get the certification and then I'd have to mix my own gas and spend big bucks on trimix rather than about $.50 per fill on air or $5.00 per fill on Nitrox. None of that is out of the realm of possibility but why would I do it for a 140 to 150 ft dive that I can do on air?

For most divers with limited funds the options are spend a lot of money on a relatively small numer of dives per year on trimix, or dive a whole lot on air. Personally I prefer a 120-130 dives per year on air.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I've done some deepish dives without helium. I figure I could do it again and survive it. However I enjoy the dive 10 times more with helium and any more would prefer not doing a dive to doing it on air. a mix like 21/35 for a 150 ft dive isn't that expensive especially if you're mixing your own.

Aside from places in the world where there isn't any helium, I don't see the gas costs being prohibative compare to the other costs of technical diving.

Around here my wife and I pay between $85 and $100 each for a seat on a boat to do a single dive on a deep wreck. For two dives it goes up to about $125 each. That's $250 for one day. The helium cost is peanuts. If I couldn't afford the gas I'd skip the boat fee, buy the gas and go dive a Missouri cave. When talking about these kinds of dives I don't see the gas costs as much of an argument. Every year I do lots of cave dives on helium but only a few boat dives. The cost of the boat is the limiting factor not the cost of the gas.

The better boats around here probably wouldn't even let you dive 180 or 200 ft wrecks on air anyway.