The Tec - Rec Split: Who Did It?

[Mike Boswell]

Hey, folks, I am asking for a history lesson here, not a bash-fest. So please... be nice.

 

[Blackwood]

Depends where you are living. Diving to 50m and doing 30mins of deco was not considered anything out of the ordinary in the early 80s where I come from. I still consider any dive that can be done on my trusty Deco200o table as "recreational".

I guess what I'm asking is this: did the advent of the term "Recreational diving" give birth to the term "technical diving"?

One of my pet peeves is when a person or group takes a word with established meaning and makes it into a proper noun that means something else.

recreational - done for recreation
diving - going below the surface
Recreational Diving - diving to less than some depth for less than some time.

Huh?


This type of behavior is huge in American politics (I'm not too familiar with other nations and their various political philosophies).

Take the term liberal, and compare its meaning to modern political Liberals. Big difference. Take the term conservative and compare it to most political Conservatives. Big difference (hell, in the American scheme, a true political conservative would be in favor of monarchy, right ).

And now that I've gone absurdly off topic, I'll reel myself back into diving.

ADD much? Oi.

 

[tkdgodess]

I recall my Dad doing deco and no deco dives in the 80's. He was diving for recreation. When he and I got certified in 1993, as I recall we were certified to 130' no decompression diving. I was around when technical started to get "cool".... the tech guy had to do p.p. blending nitrox and had an 02 analyser in his hand all the time and walked around with his black mask on backwards....

 

[Akimbo]

Pre then, I was taught Navy tables, I don't remember there being any depth limits, and I never heard of tech OR rec diving.

It's not only that some divers decided to go deeper, etc., it's also that rec decided to impose certain limits.

Ditto. Nobody ever mentioned a "floor" on my c-card in 1962, which was little more than a fancy signed business card. Some friends and I made some long shallow dives on the Navy's extreme exposure tables around 1968. We had also made a number of decompression dives to 200-220'. I was 17 by then. Older and more experienced divers would listen to the dive plan and make a few suggestions, but there was never anything like "you can't do that". It wasn't so hierarchical then.

Sure the military and commercial guys viewed us as "play divers", but I don’t recall any division within the Scuba community. Short of mimicking Hannes Keller's deep dives, I don’t remember people looking at anything in Skin Diver Magazine and thinking they can't do that.

 

[Mike Boswell]

Ditto. Nobody ever mentioned a "floor" on my c-card in 1962, which was little more than a fancy signed business card. Some friends and I made some long shallow dives on the Navy's extreme exposure tables around 1968. We had also made a number of decompression dives to 200-220'. I was 17 by then. Older and more experienced divers would listen to the dive plan and make a few suggestions, but there was never anything like "you can't do that". It wasn't so hierarchical then.

Sure the military and commercial guys viewed us as "play divers", but I don’t recall any division within the Scuba community. Short of mimicking Hannes Keller's deep dives, I don’t remember people looking at anything in Skin Diver Magazine and thinking they can't do that.

Akimbo, do you know when the changes happened, and any details about when, why, and who did it? Was it a gradual thing or sudden? It had to be an industry-wide decision, since everybody apparently agreed to it.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Pre then, I was taught Navy tables, I don't remember there being any depth limits, and I never heard of tech OR rec diving.

It's not only that some divers decided to go deeper, etc., it's also that rec decided to impose certain limits.

Hmmm ... the USN tables I have only go to 140 feet ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Mike Boswell]

And now that I've gone absurdly off topic, I'll reel myself back into diving.

I'm glad you got that off your chest. We had a great thread going a few months ago where your pet peeve would have been right on topic. I'll see if I can dig it up (lots of great Vladimir posts, as I recall)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Ditto. Nobody ever mentioned a "floor" on my c-card in 1962, which was little more than a fancy signed business card. Some friends and I made some long shallow dives on the Navy's extreme exposure tables around 1968. We had also made a number of decompression dives to 200-220'. I was 17 by then. Older and more experienced divers would listen to the dive plan and make a few suggestions, but there was never anything like "you can't do that". It wasn't so hierarchical then.

Sure the military and commercial guys viewed us as "play divers", but I don’t recall any division within the Scuba community. Short of mimicking Hannes Keller's deep dives, I don’t remember people looking at anything in Skin Diver Magazine and thinking they can't do that.

Ain't it kinda the same in any maturing recreational activity? I've been skiing a lot longer than diving, and I can remember the days when you'd see another car on the road with skis on the roof and you'd honk and wave at 'em (and they'd wave back). It was a brotherhood.

Nowadays ... sheesh ... you'd cut them off trying to get to the lift before they do. And don't even talk about the division between skiers and snowboarders ... OMG!

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Mike Boswell]

Hmmm ... the USN tables I have only go to 140 feet ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob, I don't have my tables anymore (wish I did) but I am sure they went deeper than 140', and I am sure they allowed you to compute decompression stops, and I am sure we were doing that as late as 1983 because that is the year I quit diving.

FYI, Found this tidbit, which may be relevant:

"In 1981 DEMA intitiated the "Graduated Entrance Method" (GEM) of diver training with the backing of PADI and NAUI. .. kindler gentler approach ... brought more families and busy professionals to scuba training."

http://rubicon-foundation.org/dspace/bitstream/123456789/6019/1/SPUMS_V29N3_12.pdf

 

[Akimbo]

Hmmm ... the USN tables I have only go to 140 feet ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I can’t recall any Navy tables, as printed in the manual rather than reprints, that stopped at 140. Standard Air table goes to 190' and the extreme exposure tables go to 300' on air. They have been combined in some manual revisions, but they are back to 190' now.