I see where you're coming from, but I respectfully disagree. When you decide on the conservatism or your acceptable risk for a dive, that's when the lines are drawn. If you exceed the NDL based on your own conservatism level, you can no longer make a direct ascent without crossing the line of acceptable risk for you, which is why I would say that it's a technical dive for you, and it should require planned decompression, redundancy, technical training etc. I'm ok with the fact that "my" definition makes it possible that the same dive profile is technical for one diver and not technical for another.
Question When do we speak of technical diving ?
- Thread starter Klopo
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A dive to 140 feet with 15 min of deco on a single hp100 is not a technical dive. It's a poorly planned and unsafe recreational dive. Same for a recreational diver on an al80 going into a cave. I point this out because a lot of definitions listed so far would call these tech dives.
IMO a technical dive is any dive that deliberately exceeds the depth, time, and/or overhead limits that allow one to safely dive with minimal redundancy and training, and is done with equipment and training sufficient to make it reasonably safe.
That last part is also where exploration dives pushing the limits start to fall into their own category, IMO. The deliberate choice to push against or exceed limits of any existing training or equipment, and pushing the boundaries of what could be considered reasonably safe.
IMO a technical dive is any dive that deliberately exceeds the depth, time, and/or overhead limits that allow one to safely dive with minimal redundancy and training, and is done with equipment and training sufficient to make it reasonably safe.
That last part is also where exploration dives pushing the limits start to fall into their own category, IMO. The deliberate choice to push against or exceed limits of any existing training or equipment, and pushing the boundaries of what could be considered reasonably safe.
How about: Technical diving requires advanced techniques and technologies
for dives that would be unsafe or impossible if solely using recreational techniques and equipment.
for dives that would be unsafe or impossible if solely using recreational techniques and equipment.
Absolutely. If planned as a technical dive it would naturally include redundancy and failure mitigations PLUS specific training and practice.
There's no solid line between recreational and technical diving. Even different agencies have different definitions. I'm just trying to say what most people would accept. I get the point about conservatism that could make a deco dive into a non-deco dive, but isn't that's what decides the virtual ceiling? If you're a Superman who can dive GF High of ∞, any dive within 130 feet would be a recreational dive for you as you don't have a virtual ceiling.
I see people trying to cut corners all the time, like setting GF as high as possible to convince themselves it's a recreational dive, or doing 'soft deco' on back gas and claiming it's a recreational dive as there's no gas switch or accelerated deco. I even saw a diver come to the shop and wanted to get a 40% Nitrox fill for deco because that's what his PADI Nitrox card said - up to 40% Nitrox. Most of them do this to justify why they don't need to go through proper tech training. At the end of the day, divers are responsible for their own safety. What we can do is try to guide them to the right path. It's their decision to listen or not.
A very grey area. With no direct access to the surface without a probability of getting bent, they’re relying upon their gas to last the dive. A few minutes on MultiDeco shows the foolishness of this strategy in terms of gas volumes required.
IMHO, the main difference between "recreational" and "technical" diving is the planning skills and theoretical knowledge of the implications of a particular dive.
Just take the ubiquitous 30m/100ft dive using nitrox 32. 30 minutes is the maximum "recreational" bottom time, where there’s a good chance that a direct ascent to the surface will not result in DCS (decompression sickness). How many divers would have fully planned the gas volumes for that dive? It’s easy enough to just set an arbitrary minimum gas for ascent, say 75bar/1100psi, which should work.
However, rules of thumb isn’t the planning where you’ve calculated your gas volumes and reserve based upon your personal gas consumption (SAC) and include helping other stressed divers, extraordinary events such as deeper or longer, etc. That is the domain of technical diving; understanding those consequences such that the dive will work.
Not to be a spoiler, but it's possible @lowwall has missed a key popular culture reference here.
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