Herbert Nitsch 214m News from Greece

[Sergiu]

Spectacular effort! Congrats going to Herbert in the first place but also the entire bunch down in Spetses.

Now, a couple of comments on the latest pic from the WR. With all the equipment on the freediver and the missile shaped sled, freediving starts to look SF - might finally attract some more media attention, not necessarely good but that's another story. Then, i couldnt help but noticing the Coca Cola bottle! It's for equalisation, you'd say - yup, good advertising nonetheless!

 

[ctswm711]

Is it just me or is that rope and duct tape holding the bouyancy thingy to his weight belt? Not exactly high tech LOL

 

[azapa]

nothing wrong with duct tape, the highest tech. efforts MUST have a little or they don't count!

GO HERBERT AND TEAM!

 

[alki]

Ladies and gentlemen..... enjoy.

 

[Jorg]

I already had some personal opnions about all of this, but looking at the picture above my statement in my article that I wrote got some more ground under its feet. You can read it here: Herbert Nitsch « Shark Freediving

 

[fcallagy]

I think it breaks down as cw will always be seen as more pure than NL but they are both disciplines of our sport.Nl is just that no limits so whatever way you can think of to do it better its all ok.

 

[CEngelbrecht]

Can someone explain to me again what the Coke bottle was for? I got that it's for an advanced form of equalizing, or what was it?

Chris Engelbrecht, Copenhagen

 

[Jorg]

yes it's his new eqex thingie... he stops at 30 meters depth... fills it with his own air and continues. When he can't equalize anymore he uses the air in that thing.

 

[BennyB]

And I hear that Alki has a few spare Coke bottles lying around the house

 

[CEngelbrecht]

The coke bottle is filled with water at the surface, right?

 

[Billextreme]

Engelbrecht


We check the bottle just before the dive, and it's filled with water.

100%

/B

 

[jome]

Jörg - In a way I agree with you, but in a way I also don't mind no-limits getting "freakier". It has always been technical, but now that Herbert is taking it to a completely new era, I believe (and hope) that there will be less and less people trying to beat the record and more emphasis will be on the "athletic" disciplines. It will naturally become more the kind of stunt that it has been and less and less people will have the resources to even try it and the WR will be so far a way that I doubt we'll see many newcomers in this corner of freediving soon. The technical expertise and resources to execute a WR-level no-limits dive will be so far off that it's harder and harder to see it as "freediving". Which I personally think is a good thing...

I firmly believe the eqex, as cool as it is, should not be allowed for other than sled events, possibly even just no limits, not vwt.

By the way - doesn't look so hi tech anymore. Rolls of duct tape, feet bound together with a piece of string, coke bottles...With the exception of the CH, it looks like something that was improvised on site But the main thing is that it seems to work. The glasses look cool - i guess they did away with the goggles and just put the lenses directly over the eye with some support. Should give him excellent vision under water! (minimal magnifying effect and huge field of view). Plus they make him look like a robot (and robots are always cool!) - which based on the performances you might just think he is.

 

[shoutatthesky]

Yes that's correct - Herbert is a specially designed robot from the Austrian Navy. Well he is certainly a machine.

Patrick Musimu has some interesting comment on his site about the future of NL. He basically says it is moving from sport to science. I agree.

Will we see a slow down in records? History would indicate not.

 

[MIG]

Just for you info I have just up-loaded Herbert's Constant weight record to YouTube...

and a short about his static record... (Weird!!)

MIG

 

[BennyB]

Now Marcus why do you load these things in the morning when i'm at work and it's 9 hours before I can go home and watch them???? My day just got a whole lot longer.... :head

Anyway look forward to it - what a brilliant dive that was.

 

[MIG]

Sorry Benny, I am at work as well... just happens to be a cool job!

:t
MIG

 

[Jorg]

Complete technical analysis of the sled configuration here: Getting Technical With Herbert’s Sled « Shark Freediving

 

[MIG]

Another days diving finished… Media day and technical fine tuning.
A slight problem with the New EqEx, (the last one was lost at sea yesterday) i.e. it broke, and even though it was only shallow (-50m) he lost all his air and couldn't equalise... he has stretched his eardrums and might have some sinus trauma.

We are discussing with him whether he should actually make the attempt tomorrow.
I, as his coach, say “NO!!! We should postpone until Sunday at least.”
The TV, media and sponsors do not agree.

We will see.

MIG

 

[AltSaint]

Maybe the TV, media and sponsors don't have Herbert's best interests at heart. Tell Herbert the coach overrides the media. Well done Herbert, so far. Good luck to Hannah and MiG with their records as well.

 

[Veronika]

If it doesn't work it doesn't work. Its as simple as that. Forget about the media. Best regards to Herbert!