Book review: Deco for Divers

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TSandM

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I got a copy of this book for Christmas. I had seen it recommended by Gene Hobbs of Rubicon, and by Michael Powell (aka Dr. Deco on other boards), and figured that would be a good recommendation to take heed of.

I was right.

This is really an excellent book about decompression, which has deliberately been written to make it accessible to people who have little math, or are math-phobic. The ideas are presented conceptually with liberal illustration, using graphs and tables and drawings. Some history and physiology are presented, and then the rest of the book goes through the various approaches to analyzing decompression strategies, from pure Buhlmann to the bubble models, and then also less well-known models such as DCIEM, and even Ratio Deco.

The book could have used a better editor, which is sad, because the quality of the work itself is high enough that it didn't deserve the annoying errors (unlabeled figures, transposition of images, references to colors in figures that aren't there) which were allowed to persist.

Nonetheless, this is an excellent book, and basically presented in a very palatable form all of the information I've painstakingly gathered over three years of searching and reading -- so it can shortcut your trip to understanding significantly!

And best of all, the chapter heading pages are illustrated with truly gorgeous photographs by Gareth Locke, who is a British diver and an amazing photographer.

I think this book belongs on every serious diver's bookshelf. Unless, perhaps, you have the math to digest Weinke
 
I got a copy of this book for Christmas. I had seen it recommended by Gene Hobbs of Rubicon, and by Michael Powell (aka Dr. Deco on other boards), and figured that would be a good recommendation to take heed of.

I was right.

This is really an excellent book about decompression, which has deliberately been written to make it accessible to people who have little math, or are math-phobic. The ideas are presented conceptually with liberal illustration, using graphs and tables and drawings. Some history and physiology are presented, and then the rest of the book goes through the various approaches to analyzing decompression strategies, from pure Buhlmann to the bubble models, and then also less well-known models such as DCIEM, and even Ratio Deco.

The book could have used a better editor, which is sad, because the quality of the work itself is high enough that it didn't deserve the annoying errors (unlabeled figures, transposition of images, references to colors in figures that aren't there) which were allowed to persist.

Nonetheless, this is an excellent book, and basically presented in a very palatable form all of the information I've painstakingly gathered over three years of searching and reading -- so it can shortcut your trip to understanding significantly!

And best of all, the chapter heading pages are illustrated with truly gorgeous photographs by Gareth Locke, who is a British diver and an amazing photographer.

I think this book belongs on every serious diver's bookshelf. Unless, perhaps, you have the math to digest Weinke


Thanks Lynne. I was curious about this book. After reading this I may buy it.

R..
 
Interested in seeing his take on implementation of the Ratio Deco Algorithm. . .
 
Thanks for the info and the link. There's also a downloadable sample chapter.
 
The section on Ratio Deco is fairly short, but I thought quite fair. He identifies it as a curve-fitting exercise, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of that. There are a couple of examples given.
 
Thank you for that suggestion. I have done so.
 
It's a good book that feels like a halfway mark to 'Deeper Into Diving', so it's not so full on sciency, but you get the good info.
Top book in my opinion too, nice one TS&M
 
I enjoyed reading this book. I met Mark Powell (no relation to me, that I know of) when I was again in London in the summer of 2008.
I am not surprised that this book came from such an engaging fellow.
:coffee:
 

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