Your own definition

[The Chairman]

Which is kinda ironic, since many 'tech divers' eschew technology, favoring tables over PDCs. They often make the illogical conclusion to trust their lives to a narced brain, rather than a device that rarely fails and even then usually before the dive and not during.

 

[Rhone Man]

My rule of thumb:

 

[rivers]

I don't know of any rec diving class that teaches the skills of multi tank with multi gasses. They teach one tank one gas from start to finish.

GUE Recreational Diver 3

 

[Diver0001]

Which is kinda ironic, since many 'tech divers' eschew technology, favoring tables over PDCs. They often make the illogical conclusion to trust their lives to a narced brain, rather than a device that rarely fails and even then usually before the dive and not during.

Not entirely convinced of that. I do use a computer and i'm thoroughly convinced that technical diving with a computer is better than using tables. I also dive with tables, mostly during trimix dives (because I don't have a trimix computer) and early in my career I made maybe 600 or so dives with tables. In my opinion diving with tables is in every way inferior to diving with a computer.

R..

 

[Trace Malinowski]

You are technical diving anytime you wear ScubaPro Jet Fins or OMS Slipstreams according to many dive shop owners.

 

[The Chairman]

Not entirely convinced of that. I do use a computer and i'm thoroughly convinced that technical diving with a computer is better than using tables. I also dive with tables, mostly during trimix dives (because I don't have a trimix computer) and early in my career I made maybe 600 or so dives with tables. In my opinion diving with tables is in every way inferior to diving with a computer.

Not all... "many".

 

[DevonDiver]

I don't know of any rec diving class that teaches the skills of multi tank with multi gasses. They teach one tank one gas from start to finish. Keeps the planning simple/basic, with in the BASIC diving knowledge of the beginner/recreational diver.

ANDI teach single tank + pony from the offset (OW onwards). At Complete SafeAir User (CSU) level they teach using 50% as an 'ideal ascent gas' for conservatism.

It's a fallacy that recreational diving has to be 'basic'. That's just a convenient notion fed to us by the matrix to justify a high-volume/low-quality market model that maximizes profitability for those agencies whose business model consists of selling over-priced materials in a captive market.

There is a very real requirement for 'advanced' recreational diving.... and all the safety-promoting tools that it can encompass. That does not, however, mean that 'refined' recreational diving should be confused with technical diving.

---------- Post added September 2nd, 2015 at 02:19 AM ----------

.... i'm thoroughly convinced that technical diving with a computer is better than using tables.

Except cost. The cost of a primary and back-up tech computer is hefty.

(and you'll still be limited by pre-cut table parameters if anyone in the team uses tables (primary or back-up)).

---------- Post added September 2nd, 2015 at 02:19 AM ----------

.... i'm thoroughly convinced that technical diving with a computer is better than using tables.

Except cost. The cost of a primary and back-up tech computer is hefty.

(and you'll still be limited by pre-cut table parameters if anyone in the team uses tables (primary or back-up)).

 

[Bob DBF]

It seems to me now that "technical diving" is a moving boundary that separates few divers from many divers (see above: nitrox, rec trimix).
It is not a fixed form of diving. It is a subgroup selector. It is constantly redefined to define an elite.
Trimix is technical now, but if too many use it, it becomes recreational.
Ego wins

Technical diving is a form of Recreational diving, this is the reason that you perceive a moving boundary. As procedures are tested and proved, they work their way down into mainstream diving. This has been happening since I have been diving, well before technical diving had a name.

The reason the name was coined in the early '90's was to define an relatively small group of divers making significantly involved dives. What cracks me up are the discussions trying to further limit the number of divers even more, talk about elitist, and trying to insist it is not recreational diving.

It doesn't make much of a difference to me as I'm not likely to join the ranks, and I doubt that a 200' deco dive on air even counts as a tech dive, whether there is penetration or not.


Bob
---------------------
I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.

 

[NAM001]

They and a few others are an exception to everything, and not the rule

GUE Recreational Diver 3

---------- Post added September 2nd, 2015 at 04:40 AM ----------

Thanks for the clarification. I agree. the whole idea about recreational is that it is kept simple and training is held at that level.
I think we are both ont he same page.

My point is that if you're diving a typical NDL sport dive profile you wouldn't need all that stuff in the first place...

 

[archer1960]

I'm in the simple "technical" = "overhead environment" camp, whether the overhead is physical or virtual. And "overhead" requires at the very minimum, additional training and planning, and often additional equipment.