Record deep dive challenged

[boulderjohn]

I read the article, but I have not formed an opinion. It challenges the validity of Ahmed Gabr's world record deep dive.
Was the Deepest Dive World Record Just A Pre-Planned Fake? - The Scuba News

 

[Doc]

“There have been mumblings, rumours and discussions amongst tech divers about the validity of the record over the years since Ahmed Gabr dived to 332.35m, beating....”

Not “dove”, but “dived”.

At least that is settled.

Q #2: Is there a patch?
Q #3: are there groupies?

 

[tursiops]

Not “dove”, but “dived”.

At least that is settled.

Really? For example:
Should you use 'dived' or 'dove'?.

 

[OTF]

Well that's some fascinating scuttlebutt. I have no opinion on the validity of the dive or the challenge but it should be entertaining to watch this play out.


I'll just throw out there that in the section about the angle of the rope, it wouldn't be a straight line but rather a catenary curve. Plus it's potentially influenced by all sorts of factors like differing current directions at different depths, movement of the boat, safety divers hanging from it and finning, etc. etc. Pretty complicated actually. Whatever that means for the analysis.

 

[ToneNQ]

Guinness clearly don't have forensic standards to authenticate records like this. It certainly raises some interesting points. What I've read about John Bennett, then Nuno Gomes, Michele Geraci's attempt, they suffered for their efforts.

 

[Russjstewart]

The blacked out screen on the dive computer looks a lot like lcd bleed to me, and I find it interesting there is no mention of Scuba Sam trying to contact the 3 independent witnesses.


In part 4 they ask the question “ what was the current like on the day”, but then go on to say
“To believe that Gabr retrieved the tag from 335m we must be willing to accept the following:”

• The rope was deployed and for at least one hour before the dive began, it remained at at a small angle of 7 degrees in a strong current.

If you know what the current was like why ask the question, and if you do not know, then don’t make a statement

While I am not a tech diver and have no interest in tech diving, would any sane person do a dive like this in a strong current, just for the sake of doing it.


Are Scuba Sams claims correct? Is this a case of tall poppy syndrome, will we ever know the truth?

Like man walking on the moon, people who believe it was faked will never be convinced otherwise.

 

[RainPilot]

I have been privileged to have pretty long conversations with Ahmed about his dive. The logistics around the rope were pretty intense. They spent over a year at the University of Cairo testing the stretch etc. On the day, they had a protractor mounted to the boat with max allowed deviation from vertical, plus several hundred pounds of weight on the end of it.

 

[Celt]

There’s always begrudgers, someone would have to take the tags off the rope after it was set at depth.

 

[BlueTrin]

I have been privileged to have pretty long conversations with Ahmed about his dive. The logistics around the rope were pretty intense. They spent over a year at the University of Cairo testing the stretch etc. On the day, they had a protractor mounted to the boat with max allowed deviation from vertical, plus several hundred pounds of weight on the end of it.

That seems not a trivial thing to do ...

 

[cathal]

"The final point on depth and time leads technical divers to question the ascent speed. According to the evidence on the video, Gabr made an ascent of 245m in 34 to 37 minutes. As most technical divers will tell you, there is no decompression schedule that could safely allow for such a rapid ascent. "

As a bounce dive I would say this is possible due to the bounce profile, with the resulting lack of ongassing in the slow tissues and that by ascending rapidly all you are doing is decreasing the ongassing of inerts and increasing the PPO2.

But the other observations do bother me.