Dive speeds..

[Herman]

So you take a breath and you dive to , lets make it 30m. (100f)

How long does this usually take you ?
I have seen people do it quite fast, (43 seconds),
and some a bit slower (1:40).

Just in general, what do you consider a 'good' time to do
a 30m dive ?

I think that 1:05 to 1:15 is ok .... what about you ?

Herman Cremer

 

[fjohnson]

I'm no pro

but if you MAKE it in 43 sec. or you MAKE it in 1:40.. then it's a good dive. 43 sec. and I'd be out of breath from all the work and a minute 40 I'd hope to make it beyond a 100' - my calculations put me at 100' in about 1:10 - 1:15 .... I'll know this summer.

Fred

 

[Pekka]

-30m well to me I think it is about the same little over a minute..
For me it is about one second a metre...exept at the vary first metres... so about 60sec...

 

[Bill]

velocity

The question came up in class yesterday. The 'teacher' said about one minute. I think he said about 1 meter/ minute for any deep dive.

Aloha
Bill

 

[icarus pacific]

a meter per what?

Jeez Bill, at a meter a minute, there are a lot of fish feeling pretty secure from me at around 7 feet....

sven

 

[efattah]

Not so simple.

I did many complicated experiments with dive speed a few years ago. The answers were not so simple. Also, the people at the dolphin tank have also done similar experiments. But, practicing in 30m causes problems, as I found.

The optimal speed for 30m dives does not 'extrapolate' to deeper dives. For example, for 30-35m dives, I found that either very fast (0:50-0:55) or very slow (1:20-1:25) was best. But, for 45m+, the very fast style seems to fail for all sorts of reasons, at least for me. The optimal speed for deeper dives seems to be somewhat in between the above two, closer to the slow speed. Taking a look at the recent constant weight records:
81m 2:50
82m 2:58
86m 3:10

We see a constant trend of around 0.9m/s. Interestingly, seals also descend at between 0.8 and 0.9 m/s during deep dives. Seals typically stop kicking at -80m.


Eric Fattah
BC, Canada

 

[Crispin]

For a 30m~ dive some people fin most of the way, some all of the way, some to ~20m and glide (depends when you get negative)...

But for deeper dives (as Eric said) times are about the same, probably because once you get to 40m+ you are hardly going to be kicking at all (at least not with any sort of power to make a discernable difference anyway).....I know Umberto stops kicking around the 40-45m mark....

Some days at dolphin i'll duck dive, kick to ~5m and drop from there, hit the bottom eventually, and then fin up like a tortoise, other days i'll fin all the way to the bottom, turn quick, and fin all the way up Pipin styley (like a rocket). Me Howard and Lee tried this for a good few times to experiment how we felt after a long dive (or a short one).

We agreed that down slow up slow was easy on the muscles, but left you feeling more out of breath.

Down slow up fast was great because finning up like a lunatic left you physically tired but not out of breath so much (from -30m anyway). Although we wouldn't have wanted to try powering up from 50m+....

Down fast up slow - we didn't really employ this method.

Down fast up fast - didn't employ this either - would waste too much energy and air.

However you dive, the important thing is to be relaxed I guess. And to remember the beginning of descent and ascent are the two areas in which you need to expend most effort.