Freedivers safety vest in development

[Seacidal]

For those interested freedivers,

More information on the freediver's safety vest project is available.

Please follow this link:

Freediver's Safety Vest

While development of the Freediver's Safety Vest Project has been ongoing, we have been silent for some time about our work and our advances. Now we would like to provide you with an update on our progress.

We have been very busy since our last communication. Development businesses have been formed and changed hands. Contracts have been awarded for engineering of three significant components, the wrist unit, the back-mounted inflation mechanism and the inflation bladder. We hope to have tested advanced prototypes by mid-summer.

What sounds at first like such a simple idea, "Just set your maximum time and maximum depth, and the vest will inflate when you exceed either setting", is really quite complex -- as a perusal of our web page will prove.

The whole idea of freedivers developing their own protection was started as an open Internet forum almost 2 years ago. We would like to re-open the discussion by showing you what we have developed to date. In addition, the website will be regularly updated as we pass certain milestones in the product's development.

For those of you who are interested, and especially those engineers among you, please take the time to digest the information and please feel free to offer any thoughts or suggestions for the further development of the first significant safety device for freedivers, which addresses the specter of freediver blackout.

Safe diving,
Chip Bissell
Advisory Boardmember
Oceanic Safety Systems
LegalDiver@SBCglobal.net

[Jon]

Sounds great, we just need the link.

Jon

[Fondueset]

I'd be down with that link too

[Seacidal]

Sorry all,

For some reason, the link didn't post. I must've mucked up the formating.

Here is the link:

Freediver's Safety Vest

Thanks,
Chip

[Fondueset]

This is looking very good!

[Bill McIntyre]

Thanks for the update Chip. That really looks promising and could save a lot of lives.

[Mullins]

Can you turn the max depth setting off if you want to do deep dives, or will it always trigger at 120ft? Apart from that concern it looks like a great product. I can see it being quite pricey, but what the hell...

[Fondueset]

I believe you present that yourself

[sebastien murat]

Hi,

A great safety device, but if I may play Devil's advocate:

My own research has shown that an excessive ascent rate (even without swiming) can itself be the cause of hypoxia of ascent, is/will there be a 'dump' on the unit, or is thre an uncontrolled ascent? In other words, though a diver at depth may feel having over-stepped his O2 reserve margin and deploy the unit in the hope of avoiding SWB, the unit may, if he is ascended excessively fast, precipitate a blackout.


Sebastien Murat
Sub7Seas Freediving

[trux]

Definitely great device, and hope that it will be available soon. Thanks for your hard work on it! However I had similar thoughts like Sebastien:

Originally Posted by sebastien murat

... if he is ascended excessively fast, precipitate a blackout.

Besides the SWB due to abrupt PaO2 pressure gradient, it could also cause DCS due to the uncontrolled ascent. Well, suffering SWB or DCS and getting to the surface is still better than dying at the depth, but I guess this might be also a legal responsibility concern.

[Bill McIntyre]

Originally Posted by sebastien murat

Hi,

In other words, though a diver at depth may feel having over-stepped his O2 reserve margin and deploy the unit in the hope of avoiding SWB, the unit may, if he is ascended excessively fast, precipitate a blackout.


Sebastien Murat
Sub7Seas Freediving

The diver doesn't choose to deploy the unit- it deploys automatically when selected depth or time limits are exceeded.

I was not aware that faster ascent rates could cause blackout. But even if its true, I would prefer to be blacked out on the surface with my head supported face up rather than black out at depth and sink to the bottom.

It occurs to me that the pure freediving community and the spearfishing community may have different frames of reference and a different attitude toward the usefulness of this vest. While I have no experience with competitive freediving, it is my impression that competitors have all kinds of backup and few fatalities, Pipin's wife notwithstanding.

But freedive spearfishermen do not have all that backup, and fatalities are relatively frequent. We had a couple here in Southern California just this summer, and I lost a good friend several years ago. In the case of my friend, and in other fatalities for which I have any information, I think it is likely that this device could have saved lives, assuming that it works as advertised.

Perhaps it would be useful for me to describe the situation in which I would most likely benefit from this vest. In Southern California kelp beds, white sea bass are often in the upper part of the water column, perhaps at 25 feet or less. But after we shoot them, they often wrap up in the kelp on the bottom, and that might be at 80 feet or more. The most dangerous thing I do is dive down there and try to cut fish out of the kelp. I am way past my neutral depth and am very heavy, the vis is often poor, and I have kelp and mono shooting line all around me. When faced with a situation like this, I call for a friend to come watch me. But most of the time, the friend can't even see me after I descend through the kelp, and it would be very difficult for him to help. I know that many times when I am the one on the surface, I will get concerned that the diver has been down too long and will be on the verge of a dive, only to notice that he is on the surface nearby. I didn't even see him come up, so how much help would I have been able to provide?

In a situation like this when I am pushing depth and time limits, I would like to have one of these vests.

[trux]

Bill, I definitely agree that the device can help saving lives. What Sebastian wrote was as he called it "devil's advocacy" - just trying to point out some problematic spots that possibly still can be handled either through technical modifications, or at least through detailed instructions and warnings in the user manual.

The problem is that the device can cause harm or even kill you when it misfires and you suffer SWB or DCS because of it, although you would be perfectly safe without it in the specific dive. The misfiring can happen due to technical failure, user error (time/depth set too low), or simply because you go over the preset limits without noticing it because you are in good form and still well within your safety margin. However, I guess there will be a release valve (either automatic or manual) that you can use to reduce the ascent speed even when the vest misfires by surprise. You just need to be well informed and trained to use it properly.

[Pastor]

I would rather be dead on the surface so my wife could lay my dead bones to rest than have her never find me because I was dead on the ocean floor. F..kin good idea if you ask me.

[Fondueset]

I'm sure there'll be a very carefully thought out booklet of disclaimers with this thing - making it clear that it's not a license to go gonzo. In reality though - most deployments are apt to be toward the end of a dive - and shallow.

Sebastian - your work in freediving is awesome!!! It's like a whole new esoteric current.

[sebastien murat]

Please excuse my ignorance, I haven't had time to see the specs. for this device, so am unware of whether it does have a 'dump.' Though I'm not liabelous type, I'd have to agree that the issue of DCS might also be a problem from an insurance point of view, and it would be sad to see this product come of the market or stopped in its tracks because someone threw a spanner in the works. Other than that I'm a backer.

Good one!
Seb
Mallorca, Spain
ww.sub7seas.com