What does "Tech" mean to you?

[adamtodd]

That ignores the whole scientific diving group. And then what about diving instructors who are getting paid to dive? Would you lump them into commercial diving?

IMO most of these labels are worthless except in a vague reference kind of way.

If I had to break it down it it would be recreational diving, military, or commercial diving.
I would put instructors in commerical diving, because you don't need to be a commerical diver to be an instructor. I'd put them into the recreational diver group. For example, IMO recreational divers can be mixed gas divers, teachers, cave divers etc. Scientists can use recreational or commercial diving depending on what exactly the project demands.

"Recreational" isn't nessesarly the best choice of a word. I think thats why there are all these other titles out and about.

 

[Gombessa]

IMO this is the perfect sort of topic that deserves a lot of attention on the Internet

 

[DCBC]

I think if anyone seriously has to ask what is technical diving should not be doing it in the first place!

Say what?

 

[jtivat]

Who cares what it is called but there is a big difference in a 50' reef dive and a 250' wreck dive. There is also a big difference in a 90' dive on the Cedarville and a 90' dive inside the Cedarville.

 

[muddiver]

If I had to break it down it it would be recreational diving, military, or commercial diving.
I would put instructors in commerical diving, because you don't need to be a commerical diver to be an instructor. I'd put them into the recreational diver group. For example, IMO recreational divers can be mixed gas divers, teachers, cave divers etc. Scientists can use recreational or commercial diving depending on what exactly the project demands.

"Recreational" isn't nessesarly the best choice of a word. I think thats why there are all these other titles out and about.

I agree with you that the term "recreational" has been ued incorrectely to lable the basic open circuit sport/vacation diver vs. anyone with more advanced training that uses it for a hobby.

I also agree that Instructors and paid Divemaster/Dive Cons should be in the commercial diver catagory.

Where I do not agree with you is that there is a very defined classification of four industries in the field of diving here in the United States that works really well to seporate the reasons for the diving. It is based, unfortunately, on the legal definition by our federal labor agency and is therefore somewhat mixed when it come to SCUBA instructors and the scientific community.

Anyway, I wrote a long definition one time either here on ScubaBoad or the DiveMatrix, I can't remember which, that went some thing like this:

Commercial Diving is the act of working underwater for compensation unless done so for the following excepted groups;

Diving for recreation or hobby is an exception to the rule and the instruction of others in the skills and equipment to do so, even if for compensation, is excepted from the classification of commertial diving.

Diving to preform research and scientific study, to include the use of small hand tools, is exsmpted from commercial diving only if done under a formal diving control board of qualified individuals that sets the rules for such diving and activities.

Military diving is exempt because you just can't argue with someone that has more fire power than you do.

Now, just for the sake of convenience the Public Safety Diving community has been broken off as a seporiate group from commercial diving because they do light diving work, for specialized reasons under the direction or athority of fire/police/rescue agencies that do not fall within the norm of the commercial diving industry and typically they use recreational scuba equipment to perform their tasks.

Technical diving in my opinion, once again, is any diving equipment, technique or diving outside the limts set under the typical recreational diving certification agency reccomended limits that is pretty typical between PADI, NAUI, SSI, YMCA, CMAS, and BSAC that state open circuit scuba, within the No Decompression Limits of the table you are trained to use, no deeper than 130 feet deep (39.6 M) where the diver can make a direct ascent to the surface (i.e. no hard or self imposed overhead obstruction to the surface).

 

[East West]

I call it recreational technical as you stated before DCBC . I never liked the term when used in the sport field . I consider myself a extended range sport diver . Enough said I don't want to rain on the parade

 

[mempilot]

Technical diving to me:

When I went beyond what I could dive with the OW and AOW certifications. ie. overheads (penetration, decompression, ice), public safety diving (tendered, blackwater, swiftwater), advanced gear configurations required (rebreather, PSD, etc).

All of these required specialized training that introduced new protocols and redundancy. I guess this is where I would start with the 'technical' diving definition for my diving.

 

[BTravlin]

Isn't tech diving what Gear Heads do when they're not playing with their gear?

 

[Reg Braithwaite]

The word "recreational" has several meanings depending on context. English has lots of words with more than one meaning, so I don't know why people debate the subject. "Recreational" in the context of diving sometimes means for pleasure, and also sometimes additionally means diving within set depth and time limits such that a direct ascent to the surface at any time during the dive is both possible and low risk.

"Technical" within the context of diving usually refers to a recreational dive where a direct ascent to the surface is imprudent or impossible for a significant portion of the dive, be that because of a decompression obligation, an overhead environment, or anything else. Sure, the word "technical" can refer to a bunch of other things depending on context, like requiring more complex equipment or procedures. Rock on, words have multiple meanings again.

Despite all this ambiguity, some people seem to use these terms and other people seem to understand them just fine.

 

[boulderjohn]

I agree with them. The term is useless, in my opinion, except to stroke egos.

The definitions that I have found to be the most useful are that Recreational Diving is the term coined for the standard open circuit scuba diver as trained by PADI/NAUI/NASDS/SSI/YMCA and that Technical Diving is a sub-set of recreational (or sport) diving that uses advanced techniques, exceeds restrictions or creats an overhead environment that is out side of the reccomended limits for basic scuba certified divers.

The word "recreational" has several meanings depending on context. English has lots of words with more than one meaning, so I don't know why people debate the subject. "Recreational" in the context of diving sometimes means for pleasure, and also sometimes additionally means diving within set depth and time limits such that a direct ascent to the surface at any time during the dive is both possible and low risk.

"Technical" within the context of diving usually refers to a recreational dive where a direct ascent to the surface is imprudent or impossible for a significant portion of the dive, be that because of a decompression obligation, an overhead environment, or anything else. Sure, the word "technical" can refer to a bunch of other things depending on context, like requiring more complex equipment or procedures. Rock on, words have multiple meanings again.

Despite all this ambiguity, some people seem to use these terms and other people seem to understand them just fine.

To begin with, I disagree that the term is useless. I think both Muddiver and Reg have given examples of how the term (or any such term) can be useful.

If you go to a typical source of scuba instruction, at least in my experience, instruction will be limited to the kind of diving described in these two posts above. Until recently, the shop with which I work offered only instruction in such diving. It did not have an instructor on staff who could do anything else. Here in Colorado, that describes probably 90% or more of all such shops. (If you go to the Rocky Mountain Oysters forum, you will see threads that easily confirm that.)

When the shop decided to expand its offerings, it needed a term to describe the new classes. It found the term Technical Diving worked quite well. Even without a formally accepted definition, when people see the Technical Diving link on the web site, they pretty much know what that means before they click on the link.

A term is useful when it conveys information effectively. When a shop or instructor advertises technical instruction, people generally know what that means, and they know what to expect. As Reg said, people seem to understand just fine.

What would be the alternative way of communicating that concept?