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What is Technical diving and is it for me? Technical diving can conjure up a stereotypical image of overly complicated and difficult diving for danger addicts. Well, times are a changing. For those wanting the challenge and adventure of extending their limits underwater, Technical diving could be for you.
Technical diving training is really just expanding your diving skills and it’s probably not as complicated or difficult as you think. With BSAC it’s more accessible than ever for trained divers to give it a go, with Technical entry level events running throughout the year.
BSAC defines ‘Technical diving’ as diving which involves specialist equipment such as Closed Circuit Rebreathers (CCR), using ‘multiple gas mixes on open circuit’ or diving that uses ‘helium based gas mixtures’ termed as ‘mixed gas’.
Why do Technical diving?
The primary driver for Technical diving is to expand our capability for exploring the underwater environment. The use of ‘mixed gas’ simply allows us to explore deeper than the accepted limit for air diving (with a clear head as the narcotic effects of nitrogen are reduced) opening up new frontiers to explore.
This all said Technical diving is not for everyone. It is more expensive and requires specialist training and additional diligence to stay safe. Deeper diving invariably requires extended decompression stops and therefore the need to carry and manage additional gas supplies. The complexity (and weight) of the gear necessary, plus the increasing cost of mixed gas make CCR Technical diving very attractive for this type of diving.
Technical diving training is not as complicated or difficult as many think and with BSAC it’s easy to give it a go:
https://www.bsac.com/training/Technical-diving-courses/take-a-rebreather-try-dive/
- BSAC has courses for both entry-level multi-cylinder open circuit and CCR diving:
https://www.bsac.com/training/Technical-diving-courses/
https://www.bsac.com/document/Technical-progression-chart/
- Link to BSAC Technical Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/BSACtec/
Advice and support is being provided by Peter who is one of BSAC technical advisory team members for the UK.
Peter Routledge (38y/o – married with two young children) is a secondary school teacher (active for 16years) who teaches regularly, daily, in a large secondary modern. He is a teacher of Design & Technology, Engineering and A-level Product Design as well a SCUBA diver (11yrs). He has an honours degree in Automotive design and PGCE (Cert. Ed) in Secondary Education along with MA(Ed.) level credits in Educational Research. Peter is a ‘BSAC’ Advanced Diver/OWI/Technical Instructor who is also time served as a ‘Master SCUBA Diver Trainer’, ‘Tec Deep/Tec50’ and ‘PADI Elite’ Instructor having crossed over. He is a keen organiser of dive trips and has organised multiple events from training through to expedition level dives. As a diver Peter is an Open Circuit Full Tec Trimix Diver and a Normoxic/Advanced Trimix level CCR diver with TDI/IANTD qualifications also. In 2016 Peter was presented with the (BSAC) ‘Alan V Broadhurst Award’, a certificate that recognises lifesaving endeavour using good diving technique. Peter has been a part of the BSAC (nationwide) Technical instruction team for the past few years, as a committed active CCR instructor promoting Technical diving to all the UK and helping to develop training. Peter runs the ‘BSAC Technical’ social media group giving members of the group live information and updates on BSAC Technical courses, trips and UK diving events; as in his teaching, for Peter it is about ‘making things happen’; facilitating and passing on the art of ‘Technical and wreck diving’.
