Question When do we speak of technical diving ?

[lowwall]

I think of it from a training perspective. First we have to exclude professional diving. Technical diving is a subset of recreational. Commercial, military, public safety and scientific diving are all out of scope.

Once we have that caveat stated, then to me it is technical if doing the dive means using tools, techniques and mindset changes that require extensive in-water training beyond what you could have learned in a good OW course. What does extensive mean? Hmm. Let's look at a spectrum of activities.

First we have activities that pretty much everyone agrees are not technical.

Nitrox
Drysuit
Rescue
Scooters
Hunting
Carrying a pony bottle for emergencies (not for extending the dive)

Next is the light gray area. Most would not consider these to be technical, but some do.

Back mounted doubles
Sidemount
Back gas deco (aka light deco)
Solo

And now we get to dark gray. Most would consider these to be technical. FWIW, this is where I would draw the line.

Deep air
basic Trimix (>20% O2, no gas switching)
Recreational rebreathers
SCR (with single gas)

Finally we get to the things that everyone (?) agrees are technical.

Mixed or multiple gas rebreathers not mentioned above
Physical overheads (no visible exit)
Staged deco
Hypoxic Trimix
Gas switching

I'm not including Angelo's beloved O2 rebreathers because I'm not sure how they fit in today's rec diving world.

 

[Alekseolsen]

Tech diving to me is when you have more than one gas with you on a dive and at some point during the dive you switch and breathe one or the other.

Do you mean that literally, or more "you plan to switch for decompression purpose and one of the gases is not breathabøe for the full dive" or something along those lines?

Several people in my very recreational dive club dive small doublesets. As it was discoverred that the small doubles causes issues when trying to make 2 dives out of one fill, quite a few started bringing stages. It could easily happen that they have NX32 on the stage and air on the backgas, and I wouldn't consider such a dive even close to technical, but I may be wrong

 

[rx7diver]

Tech diving to me is when you have more than one gas with you on a dive and at some point during the dive you switch and breathe one or the other.

+1. This is how we (my friends and I) thought about this in the early 1990's, when we all were diving OC.

(And this is how I continue to think about this.)

rx7diver

 

[lexvil]

The first rule of technical diving is you don’t talk about technical diving…





I’ve waited and waited for someone else to say this.

 

[lowwall]

The first rule of technical diving is you don’t talk about technical diving…

So you are saying there are no technical divers?

 

[Lorenzoid]

So you are saying there are no technical divers?

That makes me think, since seemingly everyone and their brother nowadays is coming to SB with at least some vague goal of technical diving, and a number of them are indeed soon taking courses in deco and getting into rebreathers, etc., maybe the definition of "technical" is a moving target?

@lowwall , you mentioned scooters in an earlier post as being something pretty much everyone can agree is not technical. A scooter is a serious piece of equipment, and can get a diver into a good amount of trouble if not trained in all the what-ifs. I just found there is a PADI DPV course. Is this an example of the rec diving envelope beyond which lies "tech" expanding?

 

[scubadada]

...I just found there is a PADI DPV course. Is this an example of the rec diving envelope beyond which lies "tech" expanding?

Ha. I took the PADI DPV course in 2004. The cert has allowed me to rent a DPV on a few occasions without having to do a requisite guided dive first. This is a rec activity.

 

[Cthippo]

I've always seen tech diving as when:

- you dive below 130ft/40m
- you need to switch gases
- you use helium mixes
- you have an ascent ceiling, whether it be decompression stops or an overhead environment like a cave

Shallower dives can still be technical, though. For example, a 100ft/30m dive longer than about 20 minutes would require decompression stops. So that would be a technical dive.

Is there a situation where you would be switching gasses or using helium above 130' or on a NDL dive?

I'm wondering if those two conditions are redundant because every reasonable case there they would apply are covered by the other two conditions.

 

[lexvil]

So you are saying there are no technical divers?

Can’t say

 

[Lorenzoid]

Ha. I took the PADI DPV course in 2004. The cert has allowed me to rent a DPV on a few occasions without having to do a requisite guided dive first. This is a rec activity.

That long ago, eh? I stand corrected! Still, I have long felt DPVs are not toys to be messed with lightly. As I suspect they teach in the course, if you're not careful, you could find yourself far from your starting point with a dead DPV, not having reserved enough gas to swim back underwater. Yes, it is "rec"--in the same way that real gas planning, as opposed to "be back on the boat with 500 psi," is rec.