Herbert Nitsch : a -328m no limit dive ??

[josedesucre]

In theory, if you go down fast enough you can have time for deco going up, but for that he would have to let go of the balloon, I guess somewhere between 40 and 20 meters. The whole thing is extremely risky. I remember when Patrick Musimu did his 209,6 meters in 2005 he acknowledged that he "did not came out uninjured", although AFAIK he never revealed the nature of his injury. One of the observations at the time was that the maximum depth for the German submarines in WWII was 180 meters. Other was that Musimu's lungs at over 200 meters would have been compressed to the size of a tennis ball. He reportedly used the technique (that I believe was pioneered by Pipin Carreras) of flooding his sinuses and Eustachian tubes, thus avoiding the need for equalization. Maybe one of this days Herbert himself will give us a more detailed idea of his plans.

 

[larsemil]

but arent many of the no limitguys letting go of the balloon at prox 40 meters to pull or swim up the last meters beacuse it is slower then the balloon. so i have heard at least.

herbert told me about his plans during WC and i did not get a idea of it until later. but i saw his determination during WC when going 18 times for the STA record. I cross my fingers and wish good luck!

 

[ahofbauer]

I agree about the "interpretation of rules". Mainly because the EqEx allows to "recirculate" the whole volume of air, therefore ALL the air comes into contact with the lung alveoles. There will be no unaccessible air in the mouth or trachea.

 

[ahofbauer]

The whole business is about balancing a few needs:
The shorter the inmersion, the lesser the need for decomp.
The faster the travel, the equalization becomes more difficult.
If he can skip the latter, he´ll improve on the former.
Adding the balloon gadget air can also recirculate, making all air
accessible to the lungs. I´ll give it a try in static.

 

[trux]

The whole business is about balancing a few needs:
The shorter the inmersion, the lesser the need for decomp.
The faster the travel, the equalization becomes more difficult.
If he can skip the latter, he´ll improve on the former.
Adding the balloon gadget air can also recirculate, making all air
accessible to the lungs. I´ll give it a try in static.

I am afraid you misunderstood the purpose of EqEx. It does not recirculate any air to lungs. The freediver fills the balloon during the shallow part of dive, just like you do it in the mouth-fill technique, to have then sufficient air volume when you are in depth for equalizing, not for any circulation in lungs. There is no need for any additional ventilation in lungs - the apnea time is definitely not a limiting factor at No Limits attempts and not the reason for using EqEx.

As you can see at the -183m record video of Herbert, he abandoned the sled long time before arriving to the surface and slowly swam first horizontally and then diagonally to the surface, slowly decompressing so. He claimed it was much easier than any CW dive, and he did not show any signs of hypoxia.

 

[ahofbauer]

Well, You´re right. I understand what You say. Sorry. However, in shallow dephts it should be possible to do so. I´m still willing to try. Don´t know if any advantage could be gained, but I´m determined to do some research.
Doing crazy questions new things may be discovered. For example, a few months ago I made a strange diving mask (featuring mirrors) in order to look out upwards instead of forwards. The result is a better hydrodinamic shape, because there´s no need to bend the head backwards. By the way, it´s a completely new feeling no to be looking down, but forwards.

 

[trux]

The mask sounds like a fun and a good idea, though the mirrored image may be confusing (unless you used double mirrors like at binoculars). Can you post some photos?

The recirculation of air to lungs is definitely a bad idea though - it won't help with oxygenation at all, but the feeling air circulation means false feeling of breathing, sends wrong signals to the brain, and starts wrong reflexes and metabolic processes. It may easily kill you when testing underwater. I strongly advice against ever trying it, except of it is under medical control in a well equipped laboratory.

 

[efattah]

For those who 'doubt', I will say that 305m (1000ft) is not only possible, but still far from the limit in this event. Yes, you do need to do a deco stop in apnea, but Herbert has already been doing that before. After a certain depth, narcosis doesn't get any worse because N2 in the lungs equalizes with N2 in the blood.

Way back in 2001 I predicted that the constant weight record would reach a barrier at 125m. I would say that no-limits will reach a barrier around 350-400m.

 

[strauss]

Lookin forward to finding out.

Exciting time!

 

[Akoni]

wow, that'd be awesome and I'm sure he can do it!

 

[marginatus]

For those who 'doubt', I will say that 305m (1000ft) is not only possible, but still far from the limit in this event. Yes, you do need to do a deco stop in apnea, but Herbert has already been doing that before. After a certain depth, narcosis doesn't get any worse because N2 in the lungs equalizes with N2 in the blood.

Way back in 2001 I predicted that the constant weight record would reach a barrier at 125m. I would say that no-limits will reach a barrier around 350-400m.

Can you please let us know ho w you predict those barriers? I'm not questioning it! i'm just curious!

thanks

Fernando

 

[efattah]

Can you please let us know how you predict those barriers? I'm not questioning it! i'm just curious!

thanks

Fernando

In early 2001 I had planned on trying to break the long standing 81m CW record. During that project I did extensive calculations and experiments, trying to calculate the 'limit' in each discipline. The reason was simple. I'm not actually a very good athlete, and I think I have pretty bad genetics. So, if the theoretical limit in CW was around 85-90m, then I would not even attempt to break the record, because I would not be able to approach the limit in any event. However, I calculated that the pratical limit was around 125m, so I figured that an 82m dive was not even close to the limit, so it couldn't be that hard.

To calculate the limits, I took my own personal experiences from diving, and mixed them with some estimations and approximations, to make some educated guesses. In February 2001, I was featured in a documentary where I am recorded as saying the following:
"My goal is to reach 100m in constant weight and do a 10 minute breath-hold. And I think that even those are not close to the human limit."

During that time the records were 81m and 7'35", and people thought it was a total joke that 100m or 10'00" would be possible! Now we have 111m and 10'08" with no sign of stopping....

In 2003, when I did a 30.5m full exhale dive without any injuries, I realized the chest compression was equivalent to 341m in no-limits (with full packing) -- obviously the narcosis/DCS is a totally different issue. But, that dive showed that the chest compression was not the limit. Then, after getting freediving DCS eight times and discovering that a controlled ascent with a deco stop in apnea prevented all DCS for me, then I figured that even the DCS issue can be overcome. Narcosis can be reduced by hyperventilating, and even by drinking caffeine before hand. Another method to reduce narcosis is to drink lots and lots of alcohol for several weeks before the dive, and then stop drinking a few days before (just enough time to overcome the hangover). Alcohol and narcosis both affect your NMDA receptors. Chronic alcohol consumption upregulates your NMDA receptors, so that when the narcosis downregulates your NMDA receptors, the net effect is cancelled or at least reduced.

 

[marginatus]

thanks for your anwser!
very nice stuff that you point out.

 

[strauss]

Eric the Mad Scientician.

 

[jome]

What can I say, anything is possible. I guess he would not be making such statements if he didn't have good reasons to think it was possible.

Just because we've used to seeing no-limits done one way, doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. There is tons of tweaking in ascent/descent rates, equalization techniques etc that no one has even thought of yet (except maybe him? )

Of course I'm sceptical, as I always am, but wait and see...I look forward to seeing this, or hell, any attempt that he makes, regardless of the outcome. With the exception of course of the outcome being a tragedy. So I wish him safe dives!

And then some meaningless speculation
-How fast is a feasible ascent/descent rate before water resistance and rippling effect become too much? I guess currently we are looking at 3-4 m/s? But with some clever sled desing, I'm sure it could be improved a lot...(similar to Umberto's "bullet" but better)
-I don't think a balloon type sled can achieve a fast enough ascend rate? Maybe some counterbalance or Murats "fisihing reel" type of contraption?
-From a breathhold point of view, it's entirely possible to do it FRC, and that would seem the most feasible option, provided equalisation is "taken care of"
-Like Trux said, below certain depths, even with air equalisation (provided there is air to even equalize with), the sled can, and should, go very fast.
-So it would make sense to start slowish, or normal, then as he hit's the deep part, go super fast, first part of ascent as fast as physically possible and then a nice slow ascent in the end, with a deco stop in apnea. Even with full lungs, that would minimize narcosis and dcs problems. That leaves me worried about co2 narcosis/acidocis...I guess hyperventilation would help, but I don't like it as a solution (even if the dive is easy in apnea point of view)

Fun to speculate, but I really don't know much about it, so...Even more fun would be to watch it happen

 

[strauss]

Could someone just explain something to me:

How does Herbert's mask "let out" or "purge" water in the closing stages of his dive?

...unless I misunderstood what he said.

 

[Stavros]

Could someone just explain something to me:

How does Herbert's mask "let out" or "purge" water in the closing stages of his dive?

...unless I misunderstood what he said.

Herbert's mask (for those who haven't seen it is a sphera type without the nose part and a hose connecting the mask to the diver's mouth so he can exhale air in the mask to equalise it). I am not sure how long into the dive Herbert uses air to equalise the mask but after some point he releases the hose from his mouth and as air volume is reduced water enters the mask to fill the void and equalise it. On the way up as air expands it pushes the water out of the mask and he arrives at the surface with little or no air in the mask.

About jome's comments - 3-4m/s decent-ascent rate is not something that is technically easy or something that has been achieved (As far as I know). Herbert's 183m sled was doing something in the region of 2-2,5m/s average and that is mostly due to fast ascent rate. We are toying around with sled designs and hope to get to 3-4m/s range but keep in mind the very important part of the descent speed is dictated by the the rider's ability to equalise (unless we are talking about wet equalisation) so even 2m/s is fast (the info I have is that Carlos' descent speed of 1,5m/s was due to his difficult equalisations) ... It is a brave and scary endeavour (sled design and testing) and with increased depths times and speeds and DCS becoming more and more a problem we are pretty much in uncharted waters... we will know by summertime I guess.

Cheers Stavros

PS. To Eric Fattah - I have heard that the F1 gives information about nitrogen tissue/blood saturation in freediving. Is this true? (please pm or post) Thank you.

 

[sheepeck]

BTW - why is wet equalization used only in depths?
Wouldn't be more air-economical to use it from low depths or even straight from surface?

 

[Stavros]

BTW - why is wet equalization used only in depths?
Wouldn't be more air-economical to use it from low depths or even straight from surface?

I believe air economy is not a big issue as the air volumes involved in equalisation are small. Wet equalisation is not used universally in depth disciplines because (as far as I can think) - it doesn't feel nice (at least at first it feels quite horibly), it takes a period of getting used to (same as most new things), health issues arrise (having sea water in places that it was never meant to be) - thats the most important things I could think of.
So freedivers don't decide to go into all this trouble unless they really have to (which is the case for sled dives). Divers who have used wet equalisation like Patric Masimu on his sled dives usually equalise with water at around 20-30m so it is from low depths as you suggest.

Cheers Stavros

 

[strauss]

Any news on this?

Anyone?