max dept on scuba

Here are the records on scuba for men.
all depts are in feet

YEAR DEPT GAS LOCATION DIVER
1990 452 air roatan Bret Gilliam
1962 1000 heliox california Hannes Keller&Peter Small
1989 881 trimix mante Sheck Exley

Woman record

1971 440 air bahamas Ann Gunderson***
1988 345 air florida Marty Dunwoody
1988 400 trimix mante Mary Eckhoff
*** unofficial woman's record

Some notes about these records.

Mary Eckhoff has equaled the open water record for women at 345ft

Peter Small died soon after hisdive. A saftey diver named Whittaker
also died in the resue of Small and Keller.

Hope Root died in a record attemp of 400ft in 1951.

Ennio Falco also died in a attempt of 435ft.

Sheck Exley's record dive consisted of 34 stage bottles and 13 and a
half hours of decompression. Eleven different blends of trimix with 52
deco stops. Experts gave him 50/50 odds at best to survive 780ft. He
made to 881ft.

Ann Gunderson loss her life on December 11 1971 pursuing the record of
480ft with her boyfriend Archie Forfar and Jim Lockwood. Lockwood was
the only one to survive the 480ft dive.

Two decades later Bret Gilliam started preparing to break the world
record. Everyone attempting the 480ft marker had died except Lockwood.
Bret Gilliam had over 2000 dives below 300ft. On February 14 1990 he
set the record of 452 feet on one 100 cubic feet tank of normal air. A
record that has stood for over six years.

The source of this info is from "Deep Diving" by Bret Gilliam and
Robert Von Maier published by Watersports Books.

**********************************************************************

Jim

> All depths are in feet

< ... >

:-( ) <--- Big yawn. I was the SOB (Same Ocean Buddy) of Dr. Dan
on at least half a dozen dives in which he dove deeper than that
just PRACTICING for his record dive. FWIW, Bret was the one
who bestowed Dan the OFFICIAL current record of 525 feet in 1994.

For a few low-quality shots I took on one of those dives (while I was just
bubble-watching at about 150 fsw), check out those pictures in Jeff Kell's

http://opus.admin.utc.edu/scuba/

See "drdan5.jpg" for his BIG bubbles on ascent. "drdan6.jpg" and
"drdan7.jpg" for his dive gears on those dives.

Other "records" given in the posting (which I snipped) are equally suspect.
DO NOT attempt dives at those depths without a SUBMARINE! :-) <okay,
you helioz and trimix techies don't need to flame me ;).

-- Bob.

P.S. For you record freaks, Dr. Dan is the ONLY human who has dived
below 500 feet on air, and LIVED. He did it three times. MANY more
did air dives at MUCH, MUCH, shallower depths, and DIED.

Dr Ann Kristovich broke Echoff's depth record with a 554 foot dive in
Zacton in Setember.

JEFF KITCHELL wrote:

> all depts are in feet

>-- Bob.

***********************************************************************

Bob I may be asking a stupid Question but who is "Dr. Dan"? Out of
all the books I have read I never came across a Dr. Dan. Bob, where did
Dr. Dan make these record dives.

Jeff Kitchell

***********************************************************************

Both of these records have been broken.

The current SCUBA record on air is 525', set by Dr Dan Manion in 1993
(or maybe it was 1994 - Reef Fish should know, since he was there :-).
It should be noted that Dr. Manion is confined to a wheelchair as a
direct result of his deep diving - he took a CNS hit on a "shallow"
(for him) dive shortly after he set the record, and is now
permanently paralyzed.

The SCUBA record for mixed gas stands at 925', and was set by Jim
Bowden on the same dive that claimed the life of Sheck Exley in
April, 1994. Sheck had been going for a depth record of 1000', but
is believed to have suffered an attack of HPNS during the dive, which
caused him to convulse and die.

At least one other person in recent memory (Nick Comoglio, in 1995)
has died while attempting to break the deep air record on SCUBA.
"Deep on air" has also taken the lives of numerous other divers over
the years - many were either "just curious" to see what it was like,
or else wanted to be able to say that they had done it.

You can draw your own conclusions - some records are "made to be
broken", but "deep on SCUBA" is not one of them.

-JimG

--
Jim Greenlee (j...@cc.gatech.edu) INTER-OFFICE RULES OF THE ROAD:
Instructor, College of Computing Any person carrying a full mug
Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332 of coffee has the right of way.

WOW, don't let the French dive team know that their record for an
open-sea dive back in 1977 was ALMOST broken; they went to 1,643 fsw!

Or how about them British guy who got the gold off the wreck of HMS
Edinburgh in 1981; just a mere 803 fsw!
--
See ya later. Bye. /\ /============\ /============\ o
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| /||| || / ^ \ || o
---+--- |||| || Hamburg / / \ \ New York || o o o
| | | |||| /\ || / / \ \ || o
-+- | -+- ||||/_ \ \__________/ / \ \__________/ o o
| | | | / \ \ \______/ /-^-\ \______/ oo
| | | | | | | email= | a | o o
| \_/ | tnichols| \-/ buffnet.net
\______/ \----

Tom Nichols <tnic...@buffnet.net> wrote in article
<32A2DF...@buffnet.net>...
: JEFF KITCHELL wrote:
:
: WOW, don't let the French dive team know that their record for an

:

Tom,

We said Air not mixed gas.

Peace,
Charles

Most experienced non-record seeking divers are maxing air dives out at 190
fsw.

If you want to go deeper on air that is your choice. Just remeber that
many people have died doing it. And many people have lived doing it. You
gotta make a choice.

Joel Silverstein, Publisher
SUB AQUA JOURNAL

Dr. Dan is what the DMs at Dive Dive Dive (where the 525' record was set)
called Dan Manion, M.D. It was on March 18, 1994, at the Tongue of the
Ocean (Nassau, P.I., Bahamas).

Tom Nichols <tnic...@buffnet.net> responded to Jeff's question to my comment,

> open-sea dive back in 1997 was ALMOST broken; they went to 1,664 fsw!

Tom, you are completely clueless as to what record was being discussed!
If you keep digging up your trivia, YOU'll soon be posting that the deep
AIR dive record was 35,800 fsw, made in 1960. Yeah, sure.

-- Bob.

: Here are the records on scuba for men.
: all depts are in feet

: 1962 1000 heliox california Hannes Keller&Peter Small

<snip>

: Peter Small died soon after hisdive. A saftey diver named Whittaker

This record was set by desending in diving bell to 1000 feet
then venturing outside. People disagree as to wether this consisitutes
a *scuba* record, because most people don't think a diving bell
fits the Self Contained part of the scuba acronym.

--
Stephen Galperin

Last Dive 10/22/96 the wreck of the Rio De Janeiro Maru, Chuuk, FSM
91 feet, 45 min. Beautiful engine room, telegraphs and guages all
still in place.

: WOW, don't let the French dive team know that their record for an
: open-sea dive back in 1977 was ALMOST broken; they went to 1,643 fsw!

That was on surface supplied gas. A whole different animal. Remember
the first two letters stand for Self Contained.

: --

I hadn't heard about that one, but I'd be willing to bet it
was surface supplied too.

I thought Sub Aqua Journal got the depth charge. Is it back? Dan Manion
holds the air record. The only trouble is Danny Boy has trouble even
holding his bladder now. He got really nailed on his last effort and will
be crippled for the rest of his life. For what? You've got me.

Paul Pettennude

js1su...@aol.com wrote in article
<19961202230...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...

Paul, what is the POINT of your remark? Dan Manion suffered a serious
hit, but NOT from his record air dives. As a matter of fact, the dive
on which he was hit had a MAX depth over 200 ft ABOVE his air record.
Accidents do happened in scuba, even if you dive within 130 ft and well
within table limits. For whatever reason it did happen, the least a
fellow diver can do is to have a bit of COMPASSION, and not mouth off
like you did especially because you don't even have the facts!

What effort? ALL of his air dives below 300 ft were without incident.
His three dives below 500 ft were without incident. He has done more
air bounce dives below 400 ft than most of us have done dives! You
certainly conveyed the erroneous IMPRESSION that he got hit going for
the air record. Couldn't be further from the truth.

> and will be cripple for the

Why don't you ask HIM? If you are going to flame someone, at least do
it in a forum in which he can respond! Your comment was nothing but
a cheap shot, IMO.

When Sheck died from his record depth attempt, did you come out and say,
"Shecky Boy can not hold his bladder now. He is dead. For what?"
If you did, it would have been equally pointless, IMHO.

What's done cannot be undone. If you want to crusade against certain
form of diving, do so by all means, but you don't have to point to some
SPECIFIC victims to make the point, for the same reason you don't have
to point to particular individuals who died or were crippled from scuba
incidents at 70 ft to make the point that one shouldn't dive below 60 ft!

Paul, from you own account, you did some pretty STUPID things in deep
diving yourself. You were fortunate to have escaped unharmed.

Let's see, on Wed, 4 Dec 1996 13:01:22 +0000, Paul posted on Scuba-L

> By the time I could afford fancy gear, I was told death awaited me a 130
> feet. I got there and nothing happened. So I went to 200 feet and got one
> of the world's greatest buzzes. Do you realize that getting narked is
> about as good as it gets--no artificial ingredients--no side effects. If

For what? Advising readers they should give up liquor and drugs and
try getting buzzes at 200 ft? Paul then advised, later flamed (calling
Rick an old lady) Rick Albertson,

> Rick,
>
> Nice note. Please get it through your head, diving is NOT dangerous. Say
> this 10 times. Breathe slowly. I guarantee after 1000 dives you will
> read your following letter and be embarrassed that you wrote it.

Rick was speaking of diving within rec. limits, admitting being a newbie
and conservative diver, and Paul flamed him. It was okay for Paul to
dive recklessly as described above by himself. Now Paul flames Dan
Manion for Dan's air dives. Paul, it appears to me that you are
spouting from both sides of your mouth and your nose contradicting
POINTS if those were any points you were trying to make!

I wish you well in your archeological deep dives, but (heaven forbid) if
you should ever suffer a crippling hit from one of your dives, I hope NO
ONE will come on the net (or anywhere else) and say something like you
said of Dan Manion.

Know YOUR Limits (and limitations), and DIVE WITHIN them.

That's my nickel.

-- Bob.