I never met Sheck, but I think he brought a lot of that motivation to the table all by himself. Sheck was, of course, a pioneer in cave diving, and he edited the early NSS-CDS newsletter. These were typed on paper, and a recent project in which I participated to a small degree got them digitalized. In doing that, I was struck by his clear interest in setting records--depth, penetration, etc. His newsletters included charts showing who had set what records where. His name was prominent in them, and I got the clear impression that he really liked typing his name in as many places as he could. Did the others give him a push in that direction? I have no idea, but I doubt it took more than a nudge if they did.
Now that I have said that, I want to add that I have a lot of respect for him and all the good he did in making cave diving the safe activity it is today. I hope this thread does not evolve into one that sullies that reputation.
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Sheck and George were best friends....this was well known in the 90's, though not so much today with revisionists like Bowden and Gilliam.
Nothing was more instrumental in George's rants against deep record depths or deep air, or the danger of diving with Strokes, than the death of Exley...
So from my perspective, since all I am doing is sharing information from one of the few people that was friends with Sheck--and that knew the entire background story...there is nothing I am going to say to sully Sheck...and nothing George would say.....I am sure George would say that Sheck would have said all the things George said about his own death...particularly that Sheck would say that he knew better, and allowed himself to be talked in to the drama of the record setting, even with the ridiculousness of the non-support and bad planning.
I heard a lot about Sheck from George, and from Bill Mee....and it was all 100% the kind of talk you hear about someone that is revered.
---------- Post added March 14th, 2014 at 10:57 PM ----------
As a participant in this thread, I am not supposed to moderate, but I am afraid we are going very far off topic with this discussion. I have a lot of responses that I am not making because of that.
John
The reason I posted the Tech list stuff on Sheck, was that this really is dead on point with the deep air and danger issue, along with deep records, and the concept of very bad planning, and hanging around with a very bad peer group.
Also, there is a huge difference in just diving to 130 to 160 feet on air...in my mind or George's.... versus hearing about an air attempt to 400, or deeper...or in hearing about trimix to 800 or deeper without the full umbilical and a real team of experts.....
Having a couple of losers that know nothing, as your team, does not count, and having completely the wrong gear for the depth, is another issue.....