Question When do we speak of technical diving ?

[steinbil]

I've nothing against them either. (At least while they aren't in position of power and aren't trying to impose their notion of safe on everybody).

Agreed. As long as people don't put others in unnecessary danger, or ruin other people's experiences (if deaths lead to restrictions, for example in some caves), I don't see the need to restrict the way people dive.

I admit that I sometimes do such dives. But for those dives I'm more careful with a lot of things.

That is your prerogative. I sincerely hope you stay safe, and that you don't have an accident.

But I tend to adapt my behavior to the dive and circumstances far more finely than just having a "rec" and a "tech" way and a single criteria like depth. It is the combination of risk factor that I'm considering. Diving quite often with insta buddies for instance, there are things I won't do with them (and deeper than 40m on air with just your back gaz with a buddy that neither me nor the operator know is indeed firmly in that set). And cave diving under 40m on air is also a combination I'm not ready to do, independently of the buddy and the equipment we'd take.

Agreed! I absolutely adapt my safety margins and planned exposure to the environment or to my team. It's not that I personally think that diving is that simple and black/white. I just think the first major rung of that ladder has to do with having access to a direct ascent, or going too deep. And I think this first step is easy for inexperienced divers to haphazardly take without realizing how it drastically changes their risk.

BTW, Do you dive up to 40m on air? If you do, you are keeping a far smaller limit than me between what you practice and what you consider reckless.

No, I dive up to 30m on EAN32, and I will dive shallower if my buddy seems unreliable/very inexperienced/nervous etc

 

[Blackcrusader]

to dissuade inexperienced divers from crossing that line without more experience, knowledge and training. Once you're in the technical realm, at least people should have an idea of the fact that different environments require different training and experience and hopefully respect their own limits.

So what about divers that start DECO courses from the get go? Are they suddenly technical divers if diving on a single gas like 21% on planned deco dives?

 

[steinbil]

So what about divers that start DECO courses from the get go? Are they suddenly technical divers if diving on a single gas like 21% on planned deco dives?

I don't think any divers should do deco diving "from the get go". I think a good deal of experience, competence and comfort should be a prerequisite to start deco training.

 

[Blackcrusader]

I don't think any divers should do deco diving "from the get go". I think a good deal of experience, competence and comfort should be a prerequisite to start deco training.

Yet agencies have taught deco from the get go or for divers with basic training like PADI OW and several dives who move to other agencies. Or start with OW and move right on to sports deco diving. Note it's not called technical diving.

Sports Diver

www.bsac.com

 

[Lorenzoid]

Yet agencies have taught deco from the get go or for divers with basic training like PADI OW and several dives who move to other agencies. Or start with OW and move right on to sports deco diving. Note it's not called technical diving.

I've long admired the BSAC training ladder, which apparently instills from the get-go that decompression is a continuum, and that it's okay to quickly leave the kiddie pool and move on to how decompression really works.

 

[Centrals]

I did all my technical training from the basic Advanced Nitrox to Full Trimix with IANTD around late 90s.
Does it matter what the terminology used by various agencies?

 

[steinbil]

Yet agencies have taught deco from the get go or for divers with basic training like PADI OW and several dives who move to other agencies. Or start with OW and move right on to sports deco diving. Note it's not called technical diving.

Sports Diver

www.bsac.com

I don't care what it's called, and the fact that it's being done doesn't make it a good idea. In my opinion you need the experience to know you can handle failures underwater, and you need to have enough dives to have had a few oh **** moments. I think 100 dives is a reasonable minimum, along with strict skill requirements, to start deco training.

 

[Wibble]

So what about divers that start DECO courses from the get go? Are they suddenly technical divers if diving on a single gas like 21% on planned deco dives?

Doing a little bit of deco isn't technical diving per-se.

The big question is... have you considered the various failure possibilities? If you're diving with some decompression obligation, are you certain you've sufficient gas available to complete that?

Do you have redundant gas? Could be a twinset, sidemount or a pony cylinder. Are you practised at shutdowns and swapping to backups? Do you know your SAC and have you planned for stressed gas volumes?

None of the above are specific technical diving requirements, but it is moving over the grey boundary to the other side. Which is why the lines were drawn by some agencies at the relatively simple mantra of over 40m/132ft and no deco. Other agencies, primarily European, have a bit more depth and limited deco.

 

[JMarc]

I don't care what it's called, and the fact that it's being done doesn't make it a good idea. In my opinion you need the experience to know you can handle failures underwater, and you need to have enough dives to have had a few oh **** moments. I think 100 dives is a reasonable minimum, along with strict skill requirements, to start deco training.

If my experience of diving with a club instead of a commercial structure is applicable to BSAC, there is an assumption that you dive mainly with other people from your club (including your instructors), who know your skills and let you progress at your rhythm, progressively acquiring skills which are needed for the dives your club are doing. You may change club, but the new one will provide most of your buddies and its instructors will keep you progressing on a kind of companionship formation. You get formal tests to pass a certification, but most of the skill teaching is far less formal. (Teaching of theory was more formal, but they took advantage of opportunities provided by the weekly dives to reinforce it).

That's a totally different context than passing a certification while on vacation with an instructor you never met before and will probably not meet again after. You progress on a continuous sloop, you aren't climbing up steps.

At least that's the setting I was formed in. I presume @Angelo Farina come from something similar. My guess is that BSAC started there as well, but I'm not sure how much it has evolved, nor how much the two kinds are co-existing in it.

 

[MB NZ]

Ten pages of semantics and opinion. Nothing wrong with that, but making hard rules about what constitutes "technical" is obviously problematic.

To the non-diver, even an open water course looks "technical". Gadgets everywhere, dive computers, first stages, second stages, pressure gauges etc. For those that can remember, it was overwhelming.

I realise the terms recreational and technical are likely here to stay. I don't have a massive problem with it, but perhaps it would be better if they were called basic and advanced diving and there was a smoother transition between the two. It might encourage some divers to up their game a little.