Is UTD still a "fringe" organization?

[Wibble]

nope.

You're right. A rebreather is best.

 

[OTF]

For me, GUE and UTD were both lagging behind in their acceptance of the more recent decompression research on deep stops. I waited to see how they would address the move to make the deep stops shallow and Jarrod Jablonski responded by writing a four part series in defense of the deep stops. To the best of my knowledge GUE still maintains a 20/85 GF which, though not dangerous, may not be the best reflection of what we understand to be the most effective decompression.

It is my (random stroke on the internet) understanding that GUE likes deep stops because of much-higher-than-normal slow tissue loading in the trademark extremely long deep cave expeditions they design their system for. Deep stops are useful in long deep dives but less useful in shorter "normal" dives because of the way compartments load up. I could be totally wrong about that though.

 

[PfcAJ]

It is my (random stroke on the internet) understanding that GUE likes deep stops because of much-higher-than-normal slow tissue loading in the trademark extremely long deep cave expeditions they design their system for. Deep stops are useful in long deep dives but less useful in shorter "normal" dives because of the way compartments load up. I could be totally wrong about that though.

Nah, no one doing those dives uses 20/85 anymore.

The whole idea of deep stops being more efficient has been debunked.

 

[RayfromTX]

It is my (random stroke on the internet) understanding that GUE likes deep stops because of much-higher-than-normal slow tissue loading in the trademark extremely long deep cave expeditions they design their system for. Deep stops are useful in long deep dives but less useful in shorter "normal" dives because of the way compartments load up. I could be totally wrong about that though.

Your understanding doesn't seem to be supported by current decompression science and recent studies. In fact it is almost the opposite. The penalties of staying deeper longer to do deep stops are more of a problem on longer deeper dives. Depending on what you define as "normal" dives it may not even matter. Shorter dives with say 20 minutes of deco are not the sort of dives that make the use of deep stops (low gradient factors of 20-30) a signifiant factor. You can run the dives on multi deco and change the GF to see what I mean. It may change the entire deco time by 2 minutes. Serious dives is where it matters as it adds significant time and gas.

 

[Lorenzoid]

It is my (random stroke on the internet) understanding that GUE likes deep stops because of much-higher-than-normal slow tissue loading in the trademark extremely long deep cave expeditions they design their system for. Deep stops are useful in long deep dives but less useful in shorter "normal" dives because of the way compartments load up. I could be totally wrong about that though.

My (randomer stroke on the Internet) impression of what Jarrod Jablonski said in that multi-part series of talks was that GUE continues to do it that way because, while it may not jibe with the conclusions of the recent studies, it has worked for many of them for a long time. "If it ain't broke ..." was what I thought I was hearing.

 

[OTF]

Thanks for the correction guys, I guess I have some more reading to do.

 

[PfcAJ]

My (randomer stroke on the Internet) impression of what Jarrod Jablonski said in that multi-part series of talks was that GUE continues to do it that way because, while it may not jibe with the conclusions of the recent studies, it has worked for many of them for a long time. "If it ain't broke ..." was what I thought I was hearing.

I know quite a few people who have had quite a few symptoms after 20/85 dives.

It’s broke.

 

[rjack321]

My (randomer stroke on the Internet) impression of what Jarrod Jablonski said in that multi-part series of talks was that GUE continues to do it that way because, while it may not jibe with the conclusions of the recent studies, it has worked for many of them for a long time. "If it ain't broke ..." was what I thought I was hearing.

It works for those making the decision to keep it.

Does not work for more than a few others (myself included). Percentage wise I have no idea how many times its failed. But within the organization, PFOs get a heck of a lot of blame in lieu of setting a more modern approach that might avoid some of those hits.

 

[boulderjohn]

It works for those making the decision to keep it.

Does not work for more than a few others (myself included). Percentage wise I have no idea how many times its failed. But within the organization, PFOs get a heck of a lot of blame in lieu of setting a more modern approach that might avoid some of those hits.

When I was with UTD, I had several fairly heated arguments with both my instructor and Andrew Georgitsis about our reliance on ratio deco and its deep stop obsession, especially at the altitude (4,600 feet) our UTD group was diving. I was repeatedly told that no one had ever gotten bent using ratio deco, even at that altitude. I said I could name 8 instances in our group alone, incidents resolved using surface oxygen, in-water recompression, or a chamber ride following helicopter evacuation. I was told that those cases did not count because there was always another cause, usually a suspected PFO or other unknown cause. I asked Andrew how he knew that those other things, not ratio deco, had been the cause, and he replied that ratio deco could not have been the cause because no one had ever been bent using ratio deco.

I started a thread on ScubaBoard in which I mentioned how many people had gotten bent in our group, and I received an email from my instructor telling me that if I posted anything like that again, UTD would contact PADI to have me punished--possibly expelled--as an instructor for violating the member standards against disparaging another agency. That was when I left UTD.

 

[boulderjohn]

Percentage wise I have no idea how many times its failed. But within the organization, PFOs get a heck of a lot of blame in lieu of setting a more modern approach that might avoid some of those hits.

PFO's occur in about 25% of the general population, with people rarely knowing they have one unless some medical condition results in a check. In the world of diving, the percentage of people getting DCS is far below 1%, not the 25% you would expect if they were the big cause of DCS. In addition, many of the people who get bent do NOT have PFOs--I am an example of that.

Thus, only a tiny, tiny percentage of divers with PFOs get bent, yet some people will have you think that having one guarantees DCS.