How far can scuba divers swim?

[REVAN]

I'm wondering how far and or fast scuba divers can go. When I search online for things like "longest scuba swim", I only seem to find references to dives that were conducted with assistance (example - they had a boat tender and someone to bring down resupplies of scuba cylinders).

I want to know how far divers have gone without assistance and what equipment they used (also how long it took). So, one scuba diver, with whatever equipment they got, gets in and does the dive without resupplies of life support equipment. What has been done swimming? What has been done with DPVs? The only caveat on my question is that they must be actually diving (submarine crew doesn't count).

 

[Nemrod]

I'm wondering how far and or fast scuba divers can go. When I search online for things like "longest scuba swim", I only seem to find references to dives that were conducted with assistance (example - they had a boat tender and someone to bring down resupplies of scuba cylinders).

I want to know how far divers have gone without assistance and what equipment they used (also how long it took). So, one scuba diver, with whatever equipment they got, gets in and does the dive without resupplies of life support equipment. What has been done swimming? What has been done with DPVs? The only caveat on my question is that they must be actually diving (submarine crew doesn't count).

As far as a diver has air and the deco limits allow for the depth.

N

 

[ermaclob]

I'm wondering how far and or fast scuba divers can go. When I search online for things like "longest scuba swim", I only seem to find references to dives that were conducted with assistance (example - they had a boat tender and someone to bring down resupplies of scuba cylinders).

I want to know how far divers have gone without assistance and what equipment they used (also how long it took). So, one scuba diver, with whatever equipment they got, gets in and does the dive without resupplies of life support equipment. What has been done swimming? What has been done with DPVs? The only caveat on my question is that they must be actually diving (submarine crew doesn't count).

There's alot of variables to consider like what is the pace that the diver swims in conjunction with there Sac rate. also you would also need to specify what there gas supply is as the diver could be diving anything from a single 80 to twin LP 130 with a over fill and a stage etc. the simple answer to the question is as far as his or her gas lasts apart from that were only guessing.

As far DPVs go all i can tell is us that my short body gavin can pull of a mile in a half or 2 at most. though its an older model DPV the newer ones can go significantly longer. check out the the Tahoe benchmark to see some fun facts about DPVs TBM Home Page

 

[TSandM]

In 2007, Jarrod Jablonski and Casey McKinley connected Wakulla Springs to Turner Sink. That dive was 7 miles with an average depth of 270 feet. That did involve DPVs, and there were some safety bottles in the cave, but the vast majority of that time, the divers were alone.

 

[ermaclob]

heres a scenario

Ok so looking at the 2011 tahoe benchmark the Genesis 1250 DPV can pull of 5.7 miles towing a diver in steel doubles (lets say LP95s) and an aluminum 80 and dry suit at 150 fpm. So he has about 270 Cuft of gas at start. Lets now say that he does a dive in 10 ft of water (1.3ATM) for as long as he can. Breathing with a SAC rate of 0.4 (which is really low). going the 150 fpm at cruise speed it would take 3 hour and 21 min for the DPV to run out of battery. so 3h21m = 201 min. So (201min)X(0.4sac)X(1.3ATM)=104.52 Cuft of gas consumed in the 5.7 miles the DPV ran. The diver would still have 165.48 cuft left of gas 5.7 miles in. So now lets say he ditches the DPV and just swims at normal speed of 50 fpm. His sac rate goes up to about 0.8, with that breathing at 10 ft it would take him 159.11 min or 2h39min to run out of air in all tanks. At 50 fpm he would have traveled 1.5 miles.

So in total the diver traveled 7.2 miles in roughly 6 hours. this is only a theoretical thing tho. no current or other factors

 

[PfcAJ]

In 2007, Jarrod Jablonski and Casey McKinley connected Wakulla Springs to Turner Sink. That dive was 7 miles with an average depth of 270 feet. That did involve DPVs, and there were some safety bottles in the cave, but the vast majority of that time, the divers were alone.

The 'big dive' into Q Tunnel put the end of the line at 25,766ft from Wakulla. That's a 9.76 mile round trip with an in-water time of 27hrs. 700mins at 270ft +deco.

 

[KeithG]

If this question is really a survey, then some of us old fat b*st*rds can swim upwards of several hundred feet on an AL80 tank. Any direction: down or sideways, but generally not both at the same time. This will take an hour or more to cover the distance.

In reality, I think the root question boils down to "how long can you stay underwater?" & "how fast can you move?". To which the answer always is "it depends". It is all based upon:
- how much gas do you have?
- how deep are you?
- how souped-up is your DPV?

 

[tursiops]

I suspect the actual question has to do with how much further they could have gone if only they'd used the OP new fin.
I don't much care.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I'm wondering how far and or fast scuba divers can go. When I search online for things like "longest scuba swim", I only seem to find references to dives that were conducted with assistance (example - they had a boat tender and someone to bring down resupplies of scuba cylinders).

I want to know how far divers have gone without assistance and what equipment they used (also how long it took). So, one scuba diver, with whatever equipment they got, gets in and does the dive without resupplies of life support equipment. What has been done swimming? What has been done with DPVs? The only caveat on my question is that they must be actually diving (submarine crew doesn't count).

Maybe if you provide the context/background that prompted your question, people can give more useful responses.

 

[Doc Harry]

I'm wondering how far and or fast scuba divers can go.

Drag increases dramatically with increasing speed, so there's no point in going fast underwater unless you just want to burn up your gas.

I have found that swimming very slowly minimizes both drag and gas consumption, thus maximizing my range. Therefore, distance becomes a function of SAC and total available gas volume.

If you ever have some time to kill, you can do your own speed/range experiments.


EDIT: I've gone about 3,500 feet into a cave (7,000 feet round-trip) on twin AL80s, took roughly 2 to 2-1/2 hours.