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Technical diving
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Technical diving
Technical diving (also referred to as tec diving or tech diving) is scuba diving that exceeds the agency-specified limits of recreational diving for non-professional purposes. Technical diving may expose the diver to hazards beyond those normally associated with recreational diving, and to a greater risk of serious injury or death. Risk may be reduced by using suitable equipment and procedures, which require appropriate knowledge and skills. The required knowledge and skills are preferably developed through specialised training, adequate practice, and experience. The equipment involves breathing gases other than air or standard nitrox mixtures, and multiple gas sources.
Most technical diving is done within the limits of training and previous experience, but by its nature, technical diving includes diving which pushes the boundaries of recognised safe practice, and new equipment and procedures are developed and honed by technical divers in the field. Where these divers are sufficiently knowledgeable, skilled, prepared and lucky, they survive and eventually their experience is integrated into the body of recognised practice.
The popularisation of the term technical diving has been credited to Michael Menduno, who was editor of the (now defunct) diving magazine aquaCorps Journal, but the concept and term, technical diving, go back at least as far as 1977, and divers have been engaging in what is now commonly referred to as technical diving for decades.
The popular use of the term technical diving can be traced back to the cover story of the first issue of aquaCorps magazine (1990–1996), in early 1990, titled Call it "High-Tech" Diving by Bill Hamilton, describing the current state of recreational diving beyond the generally accepted limits, such as deep, decompression and mixed gas diving. By mid-1991, the magazine was using the term technical diving, as an analogy to the established term technical (rock) climbing.
More recently, recognizing that the term was already in use by the Royal Navy for rebreather diving, Hamilton redefined technical diving as diving with more than one breathing gas or with a rebreather. Richard Pyle (1999) defined a technical diver as "anyone who routinely conducts dives with staged stops during an ascent as suggested by a given decompression algorithm".
The term technical diving was also used in the US as far back as 1977 by the California Advisory Committee on Scientific and Technical Diving (CACSTD), to distinguish more complex modes of recreational diving from scientific diving for regulatory purposes. In the US the Occupational Safety and Health Administration categorises diving which is not occupational as recreational diving for purposes of exemption from regulation. This is also the case in some other countries, including South Africa. The use of the term technical diving by the CACSTD appears to refer to dives done for technical support of scientific work by occupational divers, and is no longer used for this meaning.
Technical diving emerged between the mid-1980s and the mid-to-late-1990s, and much of the history of its development was recorded in aquaCorps, started by Michael Menduno to provide a forum for these aspects of diving that most recreational diving magazines of the time refused to cover.
At the time, amateur scuba divers were exploring the physiological limits of diving using air. Technical divers looked for ways to extend the limits of air dives, and for ways to extend breathing gas supplies as they went deeper and stayed down longer. The military and commercial diving communities had large budgets, extensive infrastructure, and controlled diving operations, but the amateur diving community had a more trial-and-error approach to the use of mixed gas and rebreathers. Consequently, a relatively large number of fatal incidents occurred during the early years, before a reasonably reliable set of operating procedures and standards began to emerge, making the movement somewhat controversial, both within the mainstream diving establishment and between sectors of the technical diving community.
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Technical diving
Technical diving (also referred to as tec diving or tech diving) is scuba diving that exceeds the agency-specified limits of recreational diving for non-professional purposes. Technical diving may expose the diver to hazards beyond those normally associated with recreational diving, and to a greater risk of serious injury or death. Risk may be reduced by using suitable equipment and procedures, which require appropriate knowledge and skills. The required knowledge and skills are preferably developed through specialised training, adequate practice, and experience. The equipment involves breathing gases other than air or standard nitrox mixtures, and multiple gas sources.
Most technical diving is done within the limits of training and previous experience, but by its nature, technical diving includes diving which pushes the boundaries of recognised safe practice, and new equipment and procedures are developed and honed by technical divers in the field. Where these divers are sufficiently knowledgeable, skilled, prepared and lucky, they survive and eventually their experience is integrated into the body of recognised practice.
The popularisation of the term technical diving has been credited to Michael Menduno, who was editor of the (now defunct) diving magazine aquaCorps Journal, but the concept and term, technical diving, go back at least as far as 1977, and divers have been engaging in what is now commonly referred to as technical diving for decades.
The popular use of the term technical diving can be traced back to the cover story of the first issue of aquaCorps magazine (1990–1996), in early 1990, titled Call it "High-Tech" Diving by Bill Hamilton, describing the current state of recreational diving beyond the generally accepted limits, such as deep, decompression and mixed gas diving. By mid-1991, the magazine was using the term technical diving, as an analogy to the established term technical (rock) climbing.
More recently, recognizing that the term was already in use by the Royal Navy for rebreather diving, Hamilton redefined technical diving as diving with more than one breathing gas or with a rebreather. Richard Pyle (1999) defined a technical diver as "anyone who routinely conducts dives with staged stops during an ascent as suggested by a given decompression algorithm".
The term technical diving was also used in the US as far back as 1977 by the California Advisory Committee on Scientific and Technical Diving (CACSTD), to distinguish more complex modes of recreational diving from scientific diving for regulatory purposes. In the US the Occupational Safety and Health Administration categorises diving which is not occupational as recreational diving for purposes of exemption from regulation. This is also the case in some other countries, including South Africa. The use of the term technical diving by the CACSTD appears to refer to dives done for technical support of scientific work by occupational divers, and is no longer used for this meaning.
Technical diving emerged between the mid-1980s and the mid-to-late-1990s, and much of the history of its development was recorded in aquaCorps, started by Michael Menduno to provide a forum for these aspects of diving that most recreational diving magazines of the time refused to cover.
At the time, amateur scuba divers were exploring the physiological limits of diving using air. Technical divers looked for ways to extend the limits of air dives, and for ways to extend breathing gas supplies as they went deeper and stayed down longer. The military and commercial diving communities had large budgets, extensive infrastructure, and controlled diving operations, but the amateur diving community had a more trial-and-error approach to the use of mixed gas and rebreathers. Consequently, a relatively large number of fatal incidents occurred during the early years, before a reasonably reliable set of operating procedures and standards began to emerge, making the movement somewhat controversial, both within the mainstream diving establishment and between sectors of the technical diving community.
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