Threaded Mode | Linear Mode

tbrown · 03-09-2003, 05:53 AM,

Came across this while searching for dive sites. Not sure if it should be placed under "Advanced" threads, as not all cases involved advanced dives. But certainly all cases were unfortunate and lets hope this list does not get any new entries.

**freedivernd** · 03-09-2003, 10:04 AM,

Tom,
I read several that had links to them.. and reading the following one: it mentions "moderate" depth.. I wonder what that is? Anyway.. when you read that none of the divers upon surfacing had enough air to go back down after the victim, all I could think was what kind of a difference might have an experienced freediver made if one had been along? I've often thought that when I've been freediving with scuba divers that I could actually be good support in the event of trouble.. especially where the vis is good from the surface. I realize to think it and to act it are completely different ends of the earth.. I look at my dive profiles from my recent trip to mex and see that most of them put me between -30 and -33 feet in 10 seconds, and my deepest profile from last summer put me at almost -80' in 22-24 seconds (started out a little fast). Point being... there might be other very good reasons to learn freediving.
Fred

03-09-2003, 10:11 AM,

I quickly browsed through some of the accident reports adn the first thing that I realized was that Sheck was on the money again. For those of you who don't know: Sheck Exley was one of the most famous cave divers ever. He died attempting to set a world record dive to a 1000ft. Anyone ever taking cave training has to read a small booklet by him, called Blueprint for Survival. In this book he analyzes what went wrong in a number of cave diving deaths, and he came up with a set of rules cave divers have to abide by in order to make it out alive. Since cave divers started implementing these rules only one death has occured in which a diver did everything correct and still died, due to a collapse.
Sheck identified five major areas: 1) continuous guideline to the surface (running reels), 2) gas supply planning (rule of thirds), 3) diving too deep (or using an inappropriate breathing mixture), 4) inadequate equipment (three lights for overhead environment, redundant gas supply,...), 5) inadequate training (such as OW divers going inside a wreck without proper training).
In all of the reports I read on that site, divers did break multiple rules, and unfortunately the wreck diving community has not come up yet with accident analysis to improve diver safety such as has been done by the cave community.

FMT · 03-09-2003, 12:04 PM,

This website/project is from one of the members (Brendon Baillod) of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Research Foundation. They put on a show every March in Milwaukee called the Ghost Ships Festival
T

Freedive WI · 03-09-2003, 06:08 PM,

Moderate depth is anything between 90 and 140' it looks like.

The Vienna is a very pretty wreck whose top deck is around 120' and bottoms out in the mud at 145'. The vis is usally great, but the water is cold.

The "WILLY" isn't all that deep. She starts in 60' of water and bottoms out at 93'. I freedive her all the time in the summer and she has had many fatalities because of the shear number of divers that visit her each year- more than 2,000 dives a year are done on her by one charter boat company alone.

Ghost ships is this coming weekend in Milwaukee.

Jon

**freedivernd** · 03-09-2003, 06:31 PM,

Hey Jon,
I know you do a lot of freediving with scuba guys.. am I off base on thinking that freedivers could possibly be good support for scuba? Do you think a freediver would be bringing more trouble than good? I think the possibility for more good is there. Moderate depth at -90' to -140' takes me almost out of the picture, if for nothing else it would for amount of time being able to spend at that depth. But a freediver would have been able to take a line down, hook on, and make retrieval possible. And for an even quicker trip down grabbed someone's weight belt and rode down with that. Maybe, in this case, it could have made a difference.
Fred

tbrown · 03-09-2003, 07:52 PM,

DRE, that is a good point about Accident Analysis and the wreck diving community (and the reason I thought others might be interested in this link). I would think that as unpleasant as it maybe, examining what happened in the event of a fatality would be benificial, if only so those mistakes would not be repeated. I can only come up with 2 possible reasons why they (wreck community) don't do this, but not being a wreck diver myself may be way off base. Firstly, caves seem to be a more static environment, and there are fewer factors that cause fatalities. I say this because cave divers don't seem to be ran over by boats, get missed in the water and that sort of thing. Not in anyway am I diminishing the risks of caves, it just seems that with wrecks there are a lot more ways to get in trouble, and some are not entirely in your control. Secondly I don't think the wreck community has ever had a powerful spokesperson. Sheck was very influencial in the cave community, and I don't think that wreckdivers have a "point man" like him. Heck, like him or hate him, GI3 has a huge influence on how things are done, and some is even trickling into Rec, and until the wreck community
gets someone like this, I don't think it will fly. It seems with wrecks there are many voices, but no one that really stands out.

Fred, I read a trip report about a guy in Cayman that taught freediving as well as SCUBA. His main point was you should never go on compressed air where you cannot go freediving. Although I am not sure I wholely agree with that, (mostly because I would be able to go no deeper than 10' :-[), I do think you might be on to something. After all, there is absolutely no way that you can have too many skills or too much training to draw on, and freediving ability just might be the straw that saved the camel's back.

***jasondbaker*** · 03-09-2003, 10:18 PM,

I always thought that cave divers and wreck divers were "closely" related in terms of philosophy. Shouldn't you have cave training if you plan to do wreck penetration? What organization is representative of the wreck diving community?

DanL · 03-09-2003, 11:52 PM,

Fred,
One thing I'm sure of - I need to get in better shape and learn/condition myself for freediving. Scuba is great, but I still picture you right next to Paul and I at 40ft with nothing but a mask, fins and Italian tailored wetsuit!
Two goals now - longer, deeper dives for wreck visits and 30ft free dives! (tell me I,m not too old)

Freedive WI · 03-10-2003, 07:44 AM,

Freediving is a great way to support the bubble blowers. When I work on the charter boats on Lake Michigan I am almost always freediving. I can zip down to 90' on a scotter and grab that mask that the guppy just lost over the side and have it back in their hands before their buddy even has their tank on. I've recovered weightbets, masks, rescued divers who come up away from the boat, tied in mooring lines and untied mooring lines(down to 65') while freediving. I will say that it is easier to tow a scuba diver while wearing bi-fins compared to my monofin.
I have even been able to retrieve lost deco bags and bring them back to they decoing trimix divers who lost them- we don't deploy till we hit 70' no matter where the deco starts at.

I am not a big advoctae of solo-scuba diving because I have seen too many people die that way, like most of the people on Brendon's list, but it has been said that a scuba diver should never solo dive deeper than twice the depth he can freedive to. That means if you can freedive to 30' you shouldn't be solo scubadiving past 60'.

Jon