I am looking to make something a little bit more complex than just the rope and the rock. It's not that I am planning anything that deep, it is just sounds like another fun thing to try and build over the winter in the north land. My father-in-law is a shop teacher and runs the boat that I work on. It could be a pretty cool project for his kids to weld together.
As far as the trimix buddies go, if I trust them to be my buddy on a mix dive to 250+ why wouldn't I trust them to be my support diver? I did the original scuba and rescue training for some of them and I know their abilities. If I were really going for some type of record, which I am not, I would put together this same team. I think that they would actually find it kind of fun.
I have talked with them about sambas and black-outs in the past. In addition many of us have been training the area dive rescue teams for quite a while now- almost 18 years now for me. We have also been involved in rescues and recoveries of other divers and their gear. Safety would be paramount.
I think that starting off at a depth that you can already do would be reasonable with a sled. It would just get you down there quicker. You can build in all of the open circut bail-outs that you want right on the sled.
Who knows, maybe this would be a way to get other divers interested in it around here. I have been bugging other divers to give it a shot and so far I have one former icediving student and one guy I play underwater hockey with intersted who are both in trying freediving this summer. Ironicaly, both of them are from Europe!
I need something to spark more interst in freediving around here- more training partners!
As far as the innertube lift device is concerned, I think that I might try a Halcyon closed lift bag instead. That way you could keep reusing it over and over again off of a small pony bottle. I assume that a regular liftbag might work as well.
Jon
