An age-old question: ways to 60m.

[Celt]

So you conclude that taking too long to get free from debris, being unable to follow their line out, having trouble finding the exit, not finding their stage tanks, was all just bad luck and had nothing to do with the fact that they had high workload and stress for 30min at 70m/230fsw on air and were certainly severely impaired from nitrogen narcosis?

Have you ever even been inside a U-boat wreck, because that stupid talk smacks of complete ignorance of what it entails.
P.S. They actually done very good to get out.

 

[flymolo]

P.S. They actually done very good to get out.

they didn't do that good. they failed to return to their their stages on the outside of the wreck (which is a straight tube laying in two pieces), and they both died. pretty much every report i've read on the incident states their gas choices were a factor.

 

[Celt]

they didn't do that good. they failed to return to their their stages on the outside of the wreck (which is a straight tube laying in two pieces), and they both died. pretty much every report i've read on the incident states their gas choices were a factor.

“A straight tube” hilarious, you should get a bit of diving in on U 869. I haven’t personally but I have done inside and outside surveys on a similar but smaller U-boat U 260 with a view to salvage operations, having received permission from the German government.

 

[flymolo]

“A straight tube” hilarious, you should get a bit of diving in on U 869. I haven’t personally but I have done inside and outside surveys on a similar but smaller U-boat U 260 with a view to salvage operations, having received permission from the German government.

thats cool man i have done some diving on the u869. it's a tube. it lays on its side so even more so than the 853 which sits upright

 

[flymolo]

all that is to say it's kind of crazy to cast them as heroes instead of a cautionary tale of what can happen when ego gets in the way of making good decisions. although that seems to go hand in hand with deep air diving

 

[Celt]

thats cool man i have done some diving on the u869. it's a tube. it lays on its side so even more so than the 853 which sits upright

In that case you must be familiar with the conditions you could find yourself dealing with inside a U-boat if there’s a collapse and that’s what the Rouses had to deal with. I’m not familiar with the layout of U 869 so don’t know why they failed to reach the stages

 

[Celt]

all that is to say it's kind of crazy to cast them as heroes instead of a cautionary tale of what can happen when ego gets in the way of making good decisions. although that seems to go hand in hand with deep air diving

Heroes???

 

[nadwidny]

“A straight tube” hilarious, you should get a bit of diving in on U 869. I haven’t personally but I have done inside and outside surveys on a similar but smaller U-boat U 260 with a view to salvage operations, having received permission from the German government.

An Irish diver asking for permission to work a wreck. Now I know you are making stuff up. I just spent 2 weeks diving in Ireland diving with Irish divers. We did many wrecks including 3 subs (2 Deadlight, 1 operational) and they never asked for permission from anyone for anything.

 

[Celt]

An Irish diver asking for permission to work a wreck. Now I know you are making stuff up. I just spent 2 weeks diving in Ireland diving with Irish divers. We did many wrecks including 3 subs (2 Deadlight, 1 operational) and they never asked for permission from anyone for anything.

There was a plan to raise U260 intact and put her on display in Glandore
PS WW2 wrecks are outside the 100 year rule.

 

[TrimixToo]

Heck, all of you saying deep air is no big deal, go right ahead. Do what you want. We won't stop you. Have a great time. I mean that. Just don't expect those of us saying we won't do it to go with you, or for us to be convinced it's OK for everyone. Many of us choose to manage the risks differently than you. You choose how you manage them. We'll manage how we manage them. I won't try to convince you. So what follows is mostly for the undecided folk reading this thread.

Have you ever even been inside a U-boat wreck, because that stupid talk smacks of complete ignorance of what it entails.
P.S. They actually done very good to get out.

I have spent several dives inside the U-853, a sister boat to the 869; both are Type IXC/40's. It's a fairly tight space, but it's quite navigable and while I tend not to silt things out I am very confident that I could follow my line out were it to happen, from anywhere in the boat. And if the line were lost and I couldn't find it for some reason I am also reasonably confident I could grope my way out because it's not a particularly complex structure inside. There are wrecks you can very easily get lost in, but this truly isn't one of them. I've also toured an IXC in a museum (though I don't recall where), which cemented its structural lack of complexity in my mind. As an aside, it's actually easier to go through underwater because it's so tight! Floating through it is easier than walking through it.

I don't know (or don't recall if I did know) where the Rouses staged their deco bottles. The boat really isn't that big. If you went the wrong way, you could swim all the way around it in a few minutes unless there were high currents, and even then it would not take that long to pull yourself along against them. If their deco bottles were staged outside (where I would put them) it's hard to imagine not being able to find them unless I were substantially impaired. If they staged them inside, then if they remembered where they were placed, a few minutes' search should have found them even if they were in a silted out compartment. But I'd question bringing them inside to begin with unless there were staged immediately inside the entry point. There just isn't enough room to bring them with you inside an IXC/40, and they're not usable gases that deep.

In addition, both were, IIRC, Full Cave certified. They *knew* how to do a zero-viz search and they *knew* how to run lines, do lost line drills, and so on. So how were they so disoriented that they gave up on the search and just surfaced without satisfying their deco obligations? My 3rd-hand opinion is they were so narced they had too little mental capacity to recall where things were tied off and to perform the needed steps after TSHTF. The combination of task loading, exertion, and high respiration rates is not your friend when you're over 200' deep. My takeaway from that reading, years ago, was "this is what trimix is for," so the exact details don't seem that important now; forgive or correct me if I've misstated anything.

(Note: If you want to NOT go to the U-869, just sign up for a charter to go with me! They all got cancelled, every time I tried to go. Weather, twice, boat mechanical once. I probably won't ever make it back there now after moving to the midwest.)