Record deep dive challenged

[Neilwood]

Really have to wonder why records like these exist.

In the real world nothing good can come from a bounce dive to 300m+. It is dangerous (I sincerely doubt any decompression algorithm writer will give any sort of assurances about their algorithm that far outside tested limits), there have been numerous deaths in attempts to beat it, and it achieves absolutely nothing apart from inducing more people to attempt it and potentially kill or severely injure themselves themselves.

The reality is that diving that deep or deeper should realistically be done as a SAT dive with chamber facilities on hand (as happens every day in industry).

 

[AfterDark]

Really have to wonder why records like these exist.

In the real world nothing good can come from a bounce dive to 300m+. It is dangerous (I sincerely doubt any decompression algorithm writer will give any sort of assurances about their algorithm that far outside tested limits), there have been numerous deaths in attempts to beat it, and it achieves absolutely nothing apart from inducing more people to attempt it and potentially kill or severely injure themselves themselves.

The reality is that diving that deep or deeper should realistically be done as a SAT dive with chamber facilities on hand (as happens every day in industry).

I suspect that at least some of the people attempting these records have something to prove to themselves.

Don't forget the others involved supporting these attempts that are diving deep not as deep but deep enough to incur more than average risk. Granted everyone is there by choice but that doesn't change the degree of danger.

Lessons are learned in these attempts but the cost vs gain is questionable IMO.

 

[100days-a-year]

Some a ya'll need to take up golf or crochet. Diving deep is no different than any extreme adventure. The human race thrives on outliers expanding the range of human experience and knowledge. There was no reason to find the North or South poles, to climb Everest or any other of that type of adventure. We learn more from one of these often poorly planned and ill conceived attempts at furthering the goalposts than all you nattering nabobs of negativity have contributed to humanity collectively. Kudos to all those intrepid souls who continue to ask themselves " Why not ? " Successful or not, they are the embodiment of the human exploration spirit.

 

[BlueTrin]

Some a ya'll need to take up golf or crochet. Diving deep is no different than any extreme adventure. The human race thrives on outliers expanding the range of human experience and knowledge. There was no reason to find the North or South poles, to climb Everest or any other of that type of adventure. We learn more from one of these often poorly planned and ill conceived attempts at furthering the goalposts than all you nattering nabobs of negativity have contributed to humanity collectively. Kudos to all those intrepid souls who continue to ask themselves " Why not ? " Successful or not, they are the embodiment of the human exploration spirit.

I think the problem is that these depths are already explored. It’s only difficult because they are using inadequate equipment.

If they were not, I think the same people would find this less controversial.

IMHO there is not as much value in these two records:

• Explore for the first time a certain place or depth
• Explore a place already visited but using inadequate equipment to make it harder on purpose. Like being on OC on air ?

However I think also that if you want to do it, have the resources and don’t injure other people doing it, then why not ...

 

[AfterDark]

Some a ya'll need to take up golf or crochet. Diving deep is no different than any extreme adventure. The human race thrives on outliers expanding the range of human experience and knowledge. There was no reason to find the North or South poles, to climb Everest or any other of that type of adventure. We learn more from one of these often poorly planned and ill conceived attempts at furthering the goalposts than all you nattering nabobs of negativity have contributed to humanity collectively. Kudos to all those intrepid souls who continue to ask themselves " Why not ? " Successful or not, they are the embodiment of the human exploration spirit.

I agree with you in principle, however, why are people still climbing Everest? That's old hat, but they still do it because IMO they have something to prove to themselves.

Divers have been working at 1000FSW for decades under a lot safer conditions than these attempts.
The lessons were learned a long time ago. What was learned from this attempt that wasn't already learned by the US Navy or the oil field divers?

It took a lot of courage, brains, mental discipline and talent to make this dive is that what was proven?

 

[Neilwood]

Some a ya'll need to take up golf or crochet. Diving deep is no different than any extreme adventure. The human race thrives on outliers expanding the range of human experience and knowledge. There was no reason to find the North or South poles, to climb Everest or any other of that type of adventure. We learn more from one of these often poorly planned and ill conceived attempts at furthering the goalposts than all you nattering nabobs of negativity have contributed to humanity collectively. Kudos to all those intrepid souls who continue to ask themselves " Why not ? " Successful or not, they are the embodiment of the human exploration spirit.

Some of these attempts are so poorly planned and ill conceived that people correctly predict the outcomes long before the attempts are made (Doc Deep for instance - there was a thread running for months before the attempt that correctly predicted the outcome link)

What we do know is that a lot of the people who do make these attempts either die or suffer long term health problems.

The only thing this record actually proves is the difficulties and dangers of doing such a deep dive on Scuba as opposed to a SAT dive.

 

[wnissen]

If we can stay on the topic of this dive, has there been any explanation of the 3-5-0 sign? That was pretty clear, he did it twice, what did it mean?

The blacking out of the tags and computer make a decent amount of sense to me. If every 10m is an alcoholic drink, if you're 30 drinks in, it's dark, you're suffering tunnel vision, you don't want to be confused by a single thing in your visual field. Thus why his stages were also labeled for depth with hand-high letters.

I didn't understand why it seemed so light at 90-100m, where he was meeting his support diver. The few times I've gone past 25m were in California, so maybe this is just different conditions, but it's dark down there! What was the viz at the time of the attempt? Obviously pretty good to great.

I was also under the impression that gas plans and deco schedules were typically not published, to avoid copycat dives with presumably even less safety precautions. Yet it's right in that post on Scuba News. The deepest part says he's on 4% O2 (!), with the bottom at 335m, and stops at 186, 171, 160, 150, 140, and so on.

As a diver who tries hard to normalize safe diving and discourage depth for the sake of depth, I normally would avoid discussing a deep dive, but there are several questions raised that haven't been explained, to my knowledge.

 

[Searcaigh]

I didn't understand why it seemed so light at 90-100m, where he was meeting his support diver. The few times I've gone past 25m were in California, so maybe this is just different conditions, but it's dark down there! What was the viz at the time of the attempt? Obviously pretty good to great.

Two possible answers to the this question

1. It's the Red Sea - I have dived to 72m in the Red Sea off Jeddah and and I don't recall any lack of light.
2. Most video cameras these days automatically adjust for light and that's probably the other reason

 

[boulderjohn]

I didn't understand why it seemed so light at 90-100m, where he was meeting his support diver. The few times I've gone past 25m were in California, so maybe this is just different conditions, but it's dark down there! What was the viz at the time of the attempt? Obviously pretty good to great.

I have never dived in this region, but I have dived to 100 meters in places where it was very light at that depth. That was especially true in Cozumel.

 

[abnfrog]

there are alot of good questions being asked .....but one why wasnt a camera droped down to record it ?..............i would of thought of that first so NO ONE could say the things that are being said