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on 7/31/00 2:24 AM, speez3 (Techdiver) at speez3@ea*.ne* wrote: > To add to what Kevin said, I have dove on the Wahoo for 5yrs. now. Too this > day I am still impressed with the crew, vessel and especially Capt. Janet > Biesser. Her diving skills and watermanship are top notch. If any of you so > called tech divers ever feel compeled to come aboard the Wahoo to dive the > San Diego or the Oregon feel free. I am sure that your adolescent and > immature insults and comments will change to praise. Janet's boat handling > skills are by far the best that I have ever seen, I know that I feel > absolutely safe and comfortable on the boat. I can't thank Janet and Steve > Belinda enough for what they have taught and are still teaching me. They > both have made me a much better diver. As for Tony Maffatone, he takes his > ideas, puts them on paper and makes them work. Everything he builds is from > his own design. This whole thread really shows ZERO intelligence from this > list. A proper apology is definitely in order. John, I have no specific comments on Janet and Steve or their abilities. As boat divers, others can comment - I don't' know them. As a general comment though, fat divers have built-in problems that "in-shape" divers do not have. There can certainly be no argument about that as there is plenty of literature out there making that case. As for Tony and his rig, he may be a fastidious and careful diver who is simply trying to bring some focus to his deep mix wreck dives and their special considerations. But his solution appears to be 10 years too late, off-center and I doubt very much if we'll see any more of these rigs out there. The gas-mixing block is interesting. Ten years ago I got into an online discussion with Chris Parrett and others about this very thing and I suggested that a gas mixing block might be the way to go (I was a new tech diver then), but almost immediately the problems inherent in such a system became obvious. When you tie O2 and Nitrox gases into a block that also contains the bottom mix, it's like planting mines in your yard. In zero vis, under stress, by accident or in any of a dozen scenarios a diver could switch to the Nitrox or O2 on the bottom. It happens even when divers completely separate their gases and mark or cover their deco regulators. How much easier would it be for a diver to kill himself if everything were run into one block? This doesn't even address how he handles failures. The rig on this page: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~timand/maffa.htm Is on the same as his new one, but how do you handle first or second-stage failures. Can you doff and don this thing? How versatile is it? Maybe Tony has some safeties built into it, I don't know, I'd like to hear, but there it is. If this rig were to enter the mainstream I think we'd see dead divers. Tony might dive for the next 10 years with his own custom rig and never have a problem - or he may kill himself next week. The point is, there are better, safer solutions. The only thing that I can see that this rig solves is that it might reduce drag a small amount over a traditional doubles/stage setup. There may also be snagging issues related to stages in the snag-rich wreck environment, but cave divers have been diving tremendous depths and distances using open-circuit and stages and semi-closed rebreathers with open-circuit bailouts. Special wreck problems aside, I question that his rig is anything more than a Rube Goldberg approach to a direct problem. I wrote ABC complaining about the inaccurate image this article portrays of tech divers. I didn't specifically mention Janet, but the open circuit diver running out of gas on the bottom? C'mon! How poorly can you be monitoring your gases to let that happen?? And you know, although Janet may be a superb boat driver and good diver, tech diving is the only "extreme" sport where you see 300 pound "athletes." You would never see someone like that in climbing or running or whitewater kayaking or skydiving. And there's a very simple reason: fat people can't do it! They are not physically capable, they don't possess the cardiovascular durability. Fitness is not an accident! The only reason you see large tech divers is because for over 80% of the dive time underwater they can handle it, they're weightless! But what about the other times when the shit hits the fan? When the gear malfunctions, when you're blown off the wreck or your buddy panics or you run into some situation where your heart rate peaks and you have to swim hard or steadily or a hundred other situations where peak effort and conditioning will make the difference between life and death for you, your buddy and most importantly, for those who risk their lives to recover you? The in-shape diver has a story to tell, the overweight diver gets recovered - or not. This isn't rocket science. John Candy and that Farley guy died tragic "early" deaths because they, to be blunt, were fat. Again, Janet sounds like a wonderful person, great captain, good diver and in a recreational setting I'd dive with her. But she was being written up in a tech diving article and, like it or not, images are made by such pieces and divers are influenced to be smart or not. I've yet to see a 300 pounder on the cover of Outside magazine. We "so called tech divers" have a real interest and a proper concern for what is put out to the public. Divers die in caves because they hear about the cave and not about cave safety. An anachronistic tinkerer, a heavy-set captain/diver and a guy who runs out of air on a rec dive are not what I would call people at the vanguard of technical diving. Therefore ABC should be slammed for posting pictures of the first people who came along without doing a little more research. It's not a matter of taste, it's a matter of safety and no one owes anyone an apology on this list. Stupidity is catching, a little inoculation was in order. Later, JoeL -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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