OP
SeaJay
Contributor
Not at all. Frankly, there's not a lot of topics that I'd rather talk about than the world record attempt.
Unfortunately, that's another record... Not one that I know the answer to. If I'm not mistaken, however, I believe that it was a world record recently when the scientists of the Aquarius project recently stayed in their habitat at about 35 feet underwater for a straight ten days, without surfacing, as a saturation study with Duke University. I'll be traveling to Duke and doing some hyperbaric studies with them in the next month... I'll ask them.
Between you and me, that sounds awfully short, though... Certainly there's been deep sea mining operations that have required longer stays - and longer decompressions - than ten days.
It would be interesting to check out, though... Interesting to find out if my attempt broke multiple records simultaneously.
The problems that I've had to address, however, have less to do with the longevity of pressure (my plan is for a max depth of about 20 feet) than the longevity of being weightless and wet for so long. Neither of those things are issues on a sub or in a habitat, and so aren't really related.
The longest single dive I've personally ever done was about 4 hours on a hookah rig. On SCUBA, I've done some shallow stuff in the vicinity of about 3 hours, without changing tanks.
Neither of these are real tests for the world record attempt... Which is why the actual attempt is "Phase 5" and not "Phase 1."
Well, the Guinness Book definitely calls it different... And I'm playing by their rules.
But the real answer to your question is that in a submersible (i.e. submarine or habitat) you're generally dry... With SCUBA gear I'll be basically swimming for two weeks.
"Surface support," by the way, doesn't mean "hookah rig." My rig must be self-contained to qualify as SCUBA... Although I'm allowed to switch tanks. The support crew will be constantly throwing in tanks, and retrieving the ones that float (empties).
Yeah, the 24 tanks are planned for the 24 hour dive. I won't actually use 24 tanks... I'll be in the vicinity of about 18, really. The extras are for surface support divers and redundant tanks in case we have a problem.
However, the Phase 5 dive... The attempt... Will probably only use 30 or so tanks and instead rely on surface support for fills. We'll see how 24 work out and make a decision from there.
There are other tanks as well... I didn't mention them because they were not donated by the shop in question... They're much larger, and capable of providing me a full 8 hours of sleep on one tank.
Great question.
The real answer to that question is that a rebreather might not qualify for the record... That's another record in and of itself, I believe, which I am not familiar with. (Sounds interesting, though.)
But I have not considered using a rebreather because of the fact that they're more difficult to obtain and I am not trained to use them yet. We're talking in the tens of thousands of dollars here, and that's not something that I yet have to spend on this attempt.
Likely a rebreather will be a consideration for the other phases, once I can prove viability in this record and I can get them donated. For now, I have to work with what I have.
But aside from that, the bottom line is that I believe in a simplistic dive philosophy... And a rebreather, I feel, is inappropriate for this dive due to it's cost and complexity, and difficulty in switching from rig to rig. With a rebreather, you're talking about purging, filling, packing, repacking, and the like... And with the necessary 2 to 4 units that would have to be present, an expense of some $30,000 or so, not including the classes... For me and all support staff. The idea would seem very gear-dependent, rather than simple and clean and available like standardized scuba gear that I'll be using.
Very cool. When are you going to join the ranks of world record holders? This is gonna be my shot... At least, the first one.
