DevonDiver
N/A
So then it becomes a mandatory optional stop? Or is it an optional mandatory stop??
It is a dive planning instruction.
In most cases, PADI don't specify a safety stop for conservatism. It is the dive community that, by consensus, chooses to safety stop on the majority of dives. For those dives, there is little reasonable risk of DCS, even without a safety stop.
In certain cases, where the dive will leave calculated nitrogen close to the calculated parameters of the RDP, PADI insist that a safety stop should be planned.
Nonetheless, in either circumstance.. in any circumstance, as a PADI recreational diver diving within the recommended limits of their training, the diver retains the ability to immediately ascend from any dive to the surface, in the event of an emergency, at a speed no greater than 18m/60ft per minute. To do so does not entail an unreasonable risk of DCS.
If a diver goes beyond the limits of the RDP, or enters decompression by whatever means they calculate their NDL, they cannot immediately ascend to the surface in the event of an emergency. They must stop at specified depths (as provided by their computer or tables procedures) for specific time periods. To do otherwise entails an unreasonable risk of DCS.
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So...would it be correct to say that a tec diver plans a deeper dive much more carefully,...
Yes, in infinitely more detail that a recreational dive.
....prints tables specific to the dive/gas profile,
Tables may be a primary or secondary (back-up) method of conducting decompression.
...and uses the computer only as backup?
An appropriate technical diving computer may be a primary or secondary (back-up) method of conducting decompression.
Most, if not all, technical diving courses are taught on the basis of using custom tables, calculated via laptop/desktop computer, based on specific parameters unique to the dive (depth, bottom time, travel/bottom/deco gases used) and the diver (air consumption, personal preferences in padding/shaping of deco).
A technical dive may be conducted on the basis of those tables, using a bottom timer and depth gauge - or by using a technical diving computer. In either case, an appropriate back-up is utilized for redundancy (lost tables, broken gauge or failed computer). That back-up may be the same method (another set of tables/gauges or another identical computer) or it may be the alternative method (primary use of tables, back-up computer or vice versa).