Record Dive during Dynamic Dive Exhibition Lago Maggiore

Pim's Tekdiving PTD

On May 10th 2008 Mario Marconi, Alessandro Scuotto and Pim van der Horst have set some new records for technical diving (according to the organization of the Dynamic Dive Exhibition) in Lago Maggiore, Italy.
The records are deepest wreck dive (wreck of the Milano), deepest cold water dive, deepest team dive. All deep divers used Ouroboros eCCR. And that alone makes it a record in the categories mentionned above. Extended video reporting can be found on: index under DDE news. The official depth of the dive is 236 mtrs (as measured by the fire department with a ROV). The VR3 of Pim indicated 233 mtrs. Bottom gas was 6/80. Bottom SP 1.4, deco SP 1.5. A big part of the deco was in a bell (pure O2 on 12 mtrs). Total CNS was about 23,000% (yes: you read it correctly...). Total runtime almost 8 hours.

Pim

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Pim van der Horst
Pim's Tekdiving PTD
pim@tekdiving.nl
DIRrebreather Instructor
CCR IT ANDI, IANTD, PTA

Ben Field

Certainly very impressive.... but why all the different records? This isn't really a sport so are those things important? Impressive none the less...


I like hearing about expeditions and the wrecks, what they found and how they did it but I am abit sick of bragging about deepest, longest etc.

(Having read the PDF- http://www.ddexhibition.org/web-content/WorldRecord.pdf you can see it was a publicity stunt/bounce dive.... not a real dive, 2 minutes on the bottom! Yes its very deep and they used alot of kit to get there and back, barges, fixed moorings, bells, surface chamber.... but its not a SCUBA Dive so IMO the records aren't valid)


FWIW I believe I hold the record for- "The Deepest Classic KISS Dive by someone named Ben who had Eggs Benedict for Breakfast that day"
(51mtrs in case any of you other Ben's fancy having a crack at it, be careful of the eggs repeating on you during deco, burp!)

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IN468

It´s with all records, noone needs them really,

but its nice to know that the machine can hold that depth

and human as well so congratulation to the team

did you any modifications on boris ?

Drmike

I agree - very impressive indeed


no, its just an easy way to get across the accomplishments in a eye catching way. Its advertising, like a punchy news headline. You saw the thread title (headline) and it attracted your attention. The tiny thing like mention of the 'records broken' on the thread is nothing compared with the accomplishments of the dive. non the less, as you say - impressive.

when the differentiator about the dive is that its deep, or its long, then its difficult and rather pointless hiding or not mentioning that fact, as is not acknowledging any records that are broken, weather you think the records are important or not is not really important - its what was actually done that is.

I read it and didn't see that at all.

What a load of nonsense. Not a real dive?? and you say its a bounce dive as if that makes it easy/worthless. Perhaps you can explain without going into sat how scuba divers can do a dive to 233m and it NOT be a bounce dive? You say 2 mins at the bottom as if that's nothing or as if its easy when in fact its a shed load of deco/min at that depth. On a dive like this how long are they sub 50m? sub 100m? they are underwater - they are diving. Generally the deeper we go diving the shorter the bottom time is compared to the descent time. I may be happy for an hour BT on a 50m dive, 25mins BT on a 70m dive, 15 on a 100m dive ...so why is it suddenly 'nothing' to spend 2mins BT at 233m?? its the same thing. We shorten bottom time the deeper we go to give us a reasonable deco.

but who cares about records? Records aren't important - results are and your in danger of letting mention of the former belittle the latter.


Its easy to be flippant.

But its not easy to do a team dive to 233m incorporating all this logistics equipment and organization that they did

You see dives like this as worthless because you are looking at it from only one narrow view (as a wreck dive) whereas the true accomplishments of such a dive is really more logistical, organizational and technical. If they had said they did BT of 2mins and identified the wreck in that time and if IDing the wreck was the stated goal you would have reason to be skeptical - but it wasnt the goal. The main goal was to carry out research into deep (and as were talking scuba that means 'bounce') diving techniques. Seams to me thats exactly what they did.

We don't have many data points or experiences for dives such as this and I agree the mention of records this or record that is not really important but to focus and to take that one small thing and use it to belittle the whole dive and accomplishments is a bit silly IMO

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UWSojourner

Congratulations on the successful return of the team! Thanks for posting.

ERIK A

Very Cool. Kudos.
233 meters ...all I can say is wow!

andibk

Pim
Congradulations on a dive well done.

andibk

Pim's Tekdiving PTD

The logistics were enormous for the dive. I guess there must have been 50-60 people busy in organizing/working (medics, gasses, support divers, surface support, engineers, ROV operators and so) to get us three divers safely to the bottom and back again. The manual of Standard Operating Procedures covered over 60 pages: every role and function was described and explained to the participants. Can you imagine the amount of bailout gas needed for the bottom divers (three of them!), the deep support divers and support divers? There were over 15 Rebreather's: Inspiration Classic, Inspiration Vision, Megalodon and of course the Ouroboros. I have never seen such a professional set up and operation for such a big dive. Without that it would never have been possible.
What we prooved is that Rebreather's can do a perfect job in deep cold water and that deep team dives are also possible. I you look at the list of 200 mtr plus dives they have been done solo. This dive was the first with three deep divers at such depth in the same time. I personally don't care about records (although it is nice to set one ). But this event was about a team effort. Look it at as climbing the Everest: setting up the different base camps and getting the team to the top. Good prepreation is key!
And regarding publicity: we need it! These kind of dives cost a lot of money. You can't do them without sponsors (at least I can't...). And sponsors want publicity...

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Pim van der Horst
Pim's Tekdiving PTD
pim@tekdiving.nl
DIRrebreather Instructor
CCR IT ANDI, IANTD, PTA

Ben Field

Yup, simply a technical and organisation exercise- nothing more.

Going to 233mtrs laying line in a cave, staying for 2minutes then returning Would be a dive- it had purpose and accomplished something, going to wreck at that depth and doing nothing is not "diving" its a shotline inspection.

The PDF makes mention of "the commemoration of the sacrifice, both civil and military, of those years." but no mention of laying a plaque or some such activity to validate going there.

I agree with the majority of that... but they started by claiming records, making out as if that where the purpose and finest achievment of this exercise... as you ably put- it was not, the logistics are phenomenal and impressive

I still fail to see the reason for the bounce- bounce it to claim a record depth yes, to do a dive- no, stay longer, go into saturation and use the bell for what it was designed then claim it was a dive- yes maybe but its not SCUBA.

Like NASA claiming they've done the furthest long weekend holiday when they went to the moon, yes they went away and came back with some snaps.... but it wasn't a Holiday.

Yes I was being silly, sorry to all... but I stand by my comment that this massive exercise is not a diving record in the slightest and I find the attitude and claims as such to be insulting.

Then don't dare claim records that you haven't broken- in my humble opinion you made the sponsers look silly by claiming non-existent records.

What you have essentially done is a commercial hard hat dive, as done on daily basis throughout the world, except you used some rebreathers for the bottom bit... otherwise it completely unrelated to SCUBA diving, rebreathers and jo-public.

We're sitting here thinking- "thats not really relavent to us, why did they bother?", some commercial outfit is probably thinking much the same- "233mtrs, thats no big deal, why did they bother?"

Great logistical exercise, fantastic organisation, evidentally well executed but for what benefit? A single bounce isn't going to meet the three challenges you set yourselves-

civil and military, of those years.

You can't document anything in 2minutes, what research did you do and how is it relavent from a single dive, what did you do by way of commemoration?

Lastly- not one of your goals was to set a record, why belittle the massive achievment with the trivial claim?


At the end of the day, this is just my opinion, clearly many people are simply going to congratulate you, I'll add my congratulations as well, it clearly is a job well done.

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cronix

Pim,

Like I told you on the phone. Congratulations!!!! You indeed proved that this can be done with rebreathers in cold water.

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