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The calendary of the Skandalopetra games for the 2010!!!!

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Hi trux!

With regard to Patrick's attempt to 150 meters, I think he will pull on the rope on the way up (not be pulled by someone else) so that makes it much more of a challenge, it's a VWT attempt with the skanthalopetra as a sled ..
 
No, Adolphin, Patrick tells he will let him pull out, following the traditionla method of Persian Gulf divers:


"I will use the logisitcs of the traditional perl divers of the Persian Gulf. Without mask, without fins, without brake, I'll have nothing else than a weight that I'll keep with the help of my feet. At given signal, I'll be trown over board just like an anchor. At that moment, the persons on the boat will have to pull me up as fast as possible."

So not exactly using the Greek skandalopetra stone (keeping it by hands), but otherways very close to it. So not really VWT.
 
Hi Guys and Gals,
there was a big discussion about this a couple of years ago when skandalopetra "competitions" started by Nikolas a few years ago...

In modern freediving we have built up safety systems and backup safety systems and backups to the backups...

We saw a 107m dive by Herbert which was (as we've seen) really easy based on Herbert's abilities (a 107m no-limits dive without a suit is not that hard when you can swim down and up from 120m)

Now we are seeing a 150m skandalopetra dive announcement and people joking about safety aspects of deep dives. At the same time we are seeing sled dives done with blatant disregard to safety standards... I am afraid we are forgetting the accidents of the past and are facing the risk of seeing more in the near future.

I hope I am proven wrong and/or people start seeing the safety aspects of deep dives in a more responsible way.

Deeply troubled

Stavros Kastrinakis
 
Stavros, please tell us more about the safety redundancy at skandalopetra diving. If the standard freediving can learn anything from it, it would be certainy welcome. I am sorry if my joking about the "human factor" (the hand-pulling) offended you. It was not meant to offend anyone, and if you reread the comment you can see I was in fact just asking about the backup methods, since the hand-pulling alone really does not look reliable enough to me. I admit I know little about the backup methods you use at the competitions, so it would be good opportunity to explain it better here. I see my initial comment was not fortunately formulated, so Nikolas did not really explain the backup methods used. He only wrote motoric pulling can be used too. If you could go more in details, it would be certainly appreaciated.
 
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Hi Trux,
I am not offended buddy :t
I am not involved in skandalopetra "competitions" - my comment was meant to go the other way around...in modern freediving competitions we have a chain of safety systems which go:

1. the diver themself (announced performance - PB - dive time)
2. trained safety freedivers
3. counterballast system & lanyard
4. motor on the counterballast system (as seen in some events)
5. other line retrieval system (I use a boat pulling the line up as last resort if 2-5 fail)
6. scuby safety divers (least useful system)

As far as I have seen in skandalopetra games (from videos, descriptions and photos) the hand pulling is the main system for retrieval of the diver...safety freedivers are there and scubies (which are not very useful in most cases as a safety system - how many scuba divers can actually perform work at 100m+...rotating them deco'ing them etc etc ... you end up risking the scuby's lives for a minimum safety they provide the diver)

The main thing (trick) that ensured safety in skandalopetra diving was limiting the dive depth (it was normally kept to around 50m which was depth the divers could swim up from)

Now with people wanting to dive deep (like the 150m announcement) safety sandards that depend primarily on the diver's apnea skills and the "pullers" stamina are a cause for concern.

We are unfortunately also seeing problematic behaviour (relaxed safety standards) in sled diving (VAR & NLT) recently and as freediving history shows us that most serious accidents have occured in the sled (or assisted descent) disciplines I find this most worrying.

Let hope I am not proven right.


Stavros
 
Interesting discussion, however perhaps a bit premature. Musimu had already announced his record attempt for 2009, and the media drums are now rolling for end of 2010. As far as I understand from the web page, funding is not yet secured (and it must be quite some funding if he is training in three different continents). The "persian gulf" style is probably linked to the source of the funding. I guess the actual details of the recovery technique are probably not high on his thoughts right now.
I also recall that Sebastian Murat had announced some years ago a NLT dive to 200m (well beyond the record of the time), with web page and all. And also his proposed recovery technique was by "human power", with his trainer (former boxer I think) being in charge of sensing the moment when Murat would stop and start pulling him up as fast as possible. Not an easy task when you think of it, but according to Murat this was the method he was more comfortable with. Nothing happened.

This said, Stavros' concerns are of course very real.
 
OK, Stavros, I misunderstood. I thought you were referring to skandalopetra. Yes, at modern sportive freediving we do have redundant safety systems. However, I am not so much persuaded they are really sufficient. The few times they were tested or needed, they miserably failed. There are rumours that the recent test of counterweight in Bahamas did not run as well as would be desired, and the question is how it would perform if the diver was already unconscious and could not help. Well, perhaps I am just misinformed, and it was not that bad. But then again, Loïc's death, who did have several backup safety systems in place, including a counter-ballast, makes me wondering whether our safety measures are really redundant enough.

Rudi Castineyra had some interesting comments about safety in the following discussion. Although I disagree with Rudi on the use of deep scuba safety, and rather consider it an added risk, just like Stavros does, some of his comments are worth of reading. He also claims he is going to test a new system, so let's hope he has a good idea, because I really think that with the permanently increasing depth, the safety becomes a serious concern, and the risk is often underestimated.

The politics of freediving: Points of contention with the AIDA rules, Part 1 Yasemin Dalkilic

However, although it concerns skandalopetra certainly too, we are hijacking the thread with a topic that would perhaps desire an independent thread. If you think it is worth of discussing more, lets move it to a new discussion.
 
Dear rxcnc2,
in the apartement Freediving Training &techniques of this forum i΄ve writen an article,where i think you will find answers to your questions.
 
trux said:
Seeing you have charts with data like this, I guess you have a complete database of results from all competitions too. I tried to find it on your website, but did not see it. Is it there somewhere?
Click to expand...

Dear trux,
We keep a record for each dive and the total is written to the table which includes the number if each dive separately and the grand total
Of course the major thing that makes skandalopetra extremely safe, is the complete luck of accidents, neither sambas nor black outs. This is due to the fact that the VO2max (maximum oxygen consumption) when diving with skandalopetra is 28%, unlike other diving techniques that can reach 88%! You have to know that I call diving with skandalopetra “the lazy dive” because in fact you don’t do anything. Skandalopetra takes you down and your assistants (kolauzeris in Greek) bring you back to the surface! All you have to do is equalizations and get over the cold and get used to diving without a mask.

Thanks
Nikolas
 
Correct me if I am wrong but there were shallow depth limits (55m max if memory serves) in the skandalopetra games listed in the data sheet of results?

Stavros
 
Stavros said:
Correct me if I am wrong but there were shallow depth limits (55m max if memory serves) in the skandalopetra games listed in the data sheet of results?

Stavros
Click to expand...

Yes exactly! But this is due to the fact that every attempt is from a team (2 persons). There are single dives from athletes that have gone really deep and this is the common practice for record attempts. That was exactly what Nitsch has done by diving at -107m.
Usually the athletes choose not to go deeper than -50,-55 meters. That’s because skandalopetra is actually a team sport. Every team has two divers. When the first one makes his attempt with the “petra”, the other one (kolauzeris) holds the rope and gives him as much rope as the declared depth attempt (for example 50 meters). When it comes to the end the diver understands it because he can’t go deeper. Then he turns around stands up on the stone holding the rope and he gives a sign to his partner (by pulling it two or three times “senialo”) so that he will start bringing him up. The two divers change roles!
In order to win, the divers of each team have to make a dive closest to the declared depth in the shortest possible time. What counts is the average depth and time of the team.
We have calculated that for a variety of reasons (for instance current), the depth at which divers are more accurate is around -50, -55 meters. When two divers have different personal records, for example -70m and -40m, they have to declare an attempt at -40m.
I have to tell you that at the finals the divers have only one attempt and usually they declare fewer meters because they don’t want to take the risk losing. That’s why skandalopetra has 13 depth categories! Of course in the individual attempt you can declare whatever you want and even try for a world record.
Stavros, I have to say that you are welcomed to participate, and why not, to give it a try for a new world record!

Nikolas
 
Nikolas Trikils said:
Dear trux,
We keep a record for each dive and the total is written to the table which includes the number if each dive separately and the grand total
Click to expand...
Yes, Nikolas, that's what I supposed, but can we see these results somewhere? Or could you send the table to me privately? I am working on a compilation of freediving performances of diverse freediving organizations, and would love to add Skandalopetra there too.
 
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Thank you very much for your interest.
Unfortunately this table is the only data we kept (you may find it attached one more time),

http://www.skandalopetra.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=25&posts=2&start=1

that shows the diving attempts total for every competition and the grand total for all the official events till today. We were more interested in the accident statistics, that’s why we issued this table at first place.
Dear trux of course as you can see we have 4 large competition events with many participants and as you understand we are going to have thousands of diving attempts. If you are interested in something more specialized, you or anyone else can participate in a competition event so that you can see things from the inside. We would be glad to cooperate in order to collect any useful data and information you might need. If you are really interested and you have the ability to attend an event, we are able to accommodate you!!

Nikolas
 
This June in Lindos,
we dive with Safety, we go for new records!
 

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Nikolas I am confused, first you wrote that you keep a table of all results, then you wrote that the only record you keep is that of accidents.
What is the depth that Karol Meyer must beat to establish a new world record in SKA?
 
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