809 feet?

[grf88]

Karen van den Oever Continues to Push the Depth at Bushmansgat: Her New Record—246m

Karen van den Oever recently broke her own world cave diving depth record by a little more than 10m/33 ft at Bushmansgat cave in South Africa. The South African cave diver conducted the 8-hour, 14-min, high-altitude dive on open circuit scuba, breathing trimix 4/90 bottom mix. She suffered mild...

gue.com

The article will provide plenty of material for her obituary should her pursuit of these records prove fatal.

 

[lostsheep]

I have a serious question for everyone who disapproves of endeavors like this.

When is pushing limits okay and when is it a pointless endeavor?

In full disclosure I am all for people who chose to push whatever limits they want as long as everyone involved accepts the risk.

 

[Beau Holden]

When is pushing limits okay and when is it a pointless endeavor?

Where would we be, if limits had not been pushed? Not just diving, but things like medicine and space exploration? Pushing limits is a personal choice.

I am all for people who chose to push whatever limits they want as long as everyone involved accepts the risk.

I agree.

 

[boulderjohn]

When is pushing limits okay and when is it a pointless endeavor?

This is a very good question throughout scuba, not just for people seeking records.

• New divers need to push their personal limits in order to grow as divers. They should not, however, take foolish risks. Where is the line between extending your limits and taking a foolish risk?
• The Trimix course I teach has an excellent section on this. Once done with the course, you are certified to a certain depth, but there is nothing stopping you from going deeper. There are no courses for that, though. You have to decide what constitutes reasonable progression and reckless behavior.
• I know of several fatalities in cave diving in which I would argue the highly skilled, trained, and experienced divers (far beyond me) were diving beyond their abilities. How were they to know before the dive that they were taking risks beyond their ability?

It is all a matter of judgment, and that judgment must be tempered with humility and patience. Too much humility and patience and you never progress. Too little and you may well die.

 

[grf88]

To me it is a question of the risk/reward ratio. At one end of the spectrum you have Banting and Best injecting themselves with insulin to see if the were serious side effects. At the other end of the spectrum you have someone, on reading that a person has the record for being hit by lightning a number of times, ventures out in s storm wearing a metal cap with a lightning rod sticking out of it to see if he can beat the record. I believe these depth records are closer to the latter than the first.

 

[tursiops]

The issue is not whether YOU are taking the risk and accepting the consequences, rather the issue is whether your behavior is encouraging others to take the risk to compete with you, when perhaps they are not as aware of the consequences. Guinness awarding a record to you is clearly encouraging other to compete, so both you and Guinness are complicit in encouraging what may be foolish and dangerous behavior, even though that was not your intent; I submit that the reckless encouragement was indeed the intent of Guinness (so their name gets used and thus their product gets advertised) and thus they should be publically shamed for doing so.

 

[EFX]

If Guinness had gone out and told people/organizations to break records than I would agree with you but they're not. They post the records for general knowledge to the public. You are ignoring one other factor: that some of the people that are breaking records are doing so for their own personal satisfaction and goals, and that has nothing to do with Guinness or anyone else. These divers are not encouraging anyone else to break records (and why would they? They want their record to stand as long as possible).

 

[tursiops]

some of the people that are breaking records are doing so for their own personal satisfaction and goals, and that has nothing to do with Guinness or anyone else.

Yes, Such people may exist. However, even they are encouraging by example their (possibly) reckless behavior, unless they keep it private and never tell anyone what they've done...and it does not seem there is therefore any way to tell if such people exist.
This thread is about Guinness documenting the record. Which is overt encouragement to others to try to break it.

 

[lostsheep]

I find it ludicrous to not engage in an activity because someone else might copy you. The person who copies you is responsible for their own risk to reward ratio not you.

That said, perhaps you shouldn't be actively encouraging others to duplicate whatever the feat may be. I'm not sure I have an opinion on whether or not Guinness is encouraging people. I can think of examples of Guinness records that were of pure entertainment value and examples where I was inspired.

 

[Kay Dee]

Its kinda funny, but people - well other divers that is - make a big fuss about these depth record attempts but no one seems too bothered / thinks the same about all the high altitude record breaking pushes. And they have there fair share, and then some, of climbing deaths - quite a few of those every year.

Now I am not condoning these record breaking depth dives / or attempts, seems pointless to me but, each to their own. Unfortunately if (when?) the caca hits the fan these dives often do put other peoples lives at risk though. But then, after all, all involved should know what they are getting into from the get go.