Technical and Recreational Diving

[uwsince79]

Hello all. I have come to ask this forum a Question. My company is preparing to start shooting a 10 hour special on Technical Diving,” The Ocean’s New Explorers.” As we are preparing, we have been asking many Technical Divers to define what is Technical Diving. What I would like is for everyone to tell me their opinion of what technical diving is to them. I am amazed by the difference just within the group already. Also if you know of any Technical Divers or you consider yourself one please let me know. So far this is turning out to be a great project and should make a great series of media for all to enjoy. Thank you for all you help.

Yours till the viz clears,

 

[Lost Yooper]

In a sentence, the line separating recreational diving and technical diving occurs when the dive incorporates some form of a "substantial" ceiling, whether that ceiling be solid like a cave/wreck or a decompression ceiling.

Mike

 

[Rick Murchison]

I would add to what Lost Yooper said that a technical *diver* is one who *plans* dives in overhead environments and then dives the plan. This includes proper equipment, training, mental and physical preparation etc. All these factors go into a technical dive - we used to do what I would call "recreational decompression dives" in the old days - no special equipment or training, it's just what you did when the tables dictated it. But that wasn't even close to the same league as "technical." As LY said, "substantial" overhead. I need to review the PADI "tech" course to see if I think it qualifies - I sorta doubt it, but it might. My suspicion is that we'll have to come up with a new term to call what we now call "technical" and that what will soon be called "technical" is what we used to call "advanced nitrox/deep air." (Not the "deep air" LY referred to in another post - still in the 40-50M range)
Rick

 

[omar]

Mike Menduno coined the term "technical diving" when he published and edited "aquaCORPS".

see
http://www.menduno.com/tech.rant.html

 

[Rick Murchison]

Great article, Omar.
Rick

 

[WetDane]

Oh - George woudl NEVER say anyting like that in a million years...
;-)

Big T

 

[bradymsu]

Thanks for the article Omar. That's has got to be one of the best pieces I've read on the tech diving world.

 

[donooo]

I too like to think in tems of ceilings, virtual (deep) and real (cave and wreck).

Now I'am focusing on wet.

don O

 

[roakey]

This just popped into my head and though I'd throw it out here without much thought, so it deserves all the ridicule it gets...

A technical dive is one where the time required to plan the dive exceeds the time of the dive itself.

I noticed this when I was taking advanced Nitrox. The amount of planning that my buddy and I did for our checkout dives far exceeded the time we were in the water. Of course, doing the dives at 10k feet of altitude adds another entire layer of calculations on top of everything else, so that consumed even more time than if we were at sea level.

Note that this is not an exhaustive definition. Caving is clearly technical, but when I do my weenie caving, which is the level I’m at (for example the main line at Peacock) the time of the dive is much longer than the planning, because the planning is basically “jump in, first person to hit thirds turns the dive.” We then proceed to do a 90-minute dive.

Roak

 

[Manogr]

Wow Omar thanks for pointing that article !!

It was great...everybody should read it !!


Manogr