Shark Freediving

Herbert and his 214 meter No Limits setup. What will be different this year? (Click on it for bigger version)

40 year old Herbert Nitsch is still planning his incredible journey to a depth of 1000 feet or 305 meters while holding his breath. November in Greece is the time and place we here more and more. So Herbert will attempt to break his already 3 year old No Limits record when he reached a depth of 214 meter. He wants to improve his own record with 91 meters extra depth!

We all know the incredible skills of Herbert but is this 305 meters not just too much? For sure this record has nothing to do with the sport side of freediving, but it’s probably more a personal quest for Herbert to reach that magic number of 1000 feet. What improvements will he make to his already pretty out-of-the-box setup for his last no limits record.

It’s still essential that he will remain around a dive time of 4:30 minutes because of DCS and narcosis problems. And if you see his dive graph of the 215 meter dive it has already got ridiculous ascending and descending speeds. But there is room for speed increase; When Herbert dives down he stops at around 20-25 meters to empty his lungs into a  bottle around. This way he reduces narcosis/DCS problems and he has air left which he can use to equalize in the deep part when air is needed which normally he couldn’t get from his lungs anymore at that depth. To start at the surface, go to 20 meters and fill the bottle and continue takes around 30 seconds.

On the way to the surface Herbert takes it very very slow in the last 20 meters again. Doing a static hang at around 10 meters depth. So his time to surface from 25 meters on is around 1:30 minutes. That leaves 2:30 to go from 25 meters to 215 and back to 25 meters.  1:15 to descent 190 meters and 1:15 to ascent 190 meters, which is around 2,5 meters per second.

To go from 25 meters to 305 in 1:15 minutes is 280 meters with a speed of 3,73 meters per second. For his 215 meter dive his maximum speed going down was 3,1 m/s and going up 4 m/s. If Herbert could descent with a continue speed of 3m/s and ascent with 4,5m/s he would still be in the 2,5 minute time-frame.

Can you imagine stepping into the lift of the eiffeltower elevator on the third floor and touching the ground in 1:30 minute? That would be scary as hell! And now imagine standing at the bottom of the eiffeltower and being on the third floor in only a minute! Pretty Extreme! Puts things into perspective.

Good luck and safe dives to Herbert Nitsch and his crew. Any updates on the expedition can be read here.

Below a video of the 214 meter no limits dive and two teasers from his upcoming documentary about his 1000 feet quest.

What do you think about his 1000 feet quest?

Last week I had a discussion with someone who had just begun with freediving. With everything he had read on the internet and what he heard from other freedivers he thought that he knew it all and really thought he was a competent and safe freediver. After I showed him the video below and asking him if he knew how he would deal with such a situation, it was pretty quiet. Some things you don’t learn by only reading and listening. Technique and skills come by real practice and getting instruction.

There are several places you can go to for freediving education. Some of the most famous ones are listed below. If you want to be added, leave a comment.

• AIDA Education
• Apnea Academy
• Performance Freediving
• Freediving Instructors International
• Freedive Dahab
• We Freedive
• Deeperblue Courses
• DBS Freediving (Portugal)
• Oceancolors

For more background info about the video look here.

I must say that I’m pretty happy with the new board and their way of communicating into the open. Regular monthly newsletters are exactly what the community needs. So bravo to them. Below the newsletter for the month April. What do you think of the new AIDA Board and how the are handling things?

Aida Newsletter, April 2010

Kimmo Lahtinen, Board President, stated that despite the fact that the situation at the beginning of the year was challenging; progress has been made on many fronts. Monthly meetings have been established and new meeting tools enacted. The statutes and disciplinary guideline are ready for board review. The 2009 accounting has been prepared for Assembly review and the Aida Team world championship competition 2010 judge vote is ready to be launched. Kimmo is most pleased that the Board is still intact and capably working and improving. Committee members have not yet been approved by the Board but will be shortly.

The Technical Committee, led by Greg Piazzola, is finalizing the minority updates (critical corrections only) for the current Aida competition rules. An Aida freediving safety guide document is pending along with a general competition guideline. If you are interested in participating in a workgroup in this area; please contact Greg. Greg, Pim, and Sebastian are working with organizers in Okinawa for the Team World Championship. The website is up and running and the medals have been ordered. The Assembly is reminded to please register their teams for the competition as soon as possible.

Dr.Fitz-Clarke, with the Medical Science Committee, is continuing their agenda for 2010. The committee list includes: seeking international scientists for an advisory panel, developing freediving information packets for physicians, establishing a data base for black out incidents in competitions, and  developing a working paper on medical clearance. Additionally, Fred Le Maitre has circulated a research questionnaire for freedivers.

The Disciplinary Committee will present a vote to the Assembly for the Team World competition judges followed by a vote on the DC guidelines, which have now been reviewed. An eventual restructuring of the DC committee is under consideration.

Media Officer Sebastian Naslund, in addition to working on new templates for media releases, has been busy overseeing the aspects of the IT project. A preliminary version of the ranking system has been implemented and the new site navigation system is ready. Volunteer writers are needed to expand the content in the new site.

Pim Vermeulen Sports officer is evaluating and updating the competition calendar and supporting organizers with their competitions. The updated calendar is ready for migration to the new Aida site.  He is working with Grant Graves (Vice President) on judging issues and the new rules corrections. Grant is also responsible for record keeping on judge levels. Please submit competition judging experience to Grant to update your level. Aida cards printing is growing at a fast pace and Aida is seeking help from printing companies. Please inform Pim if you have a source for reasonable printing.

Secretary Pia Jerabek finalized a report on the general Aida finances with extensive help and exemplary cooperation from former treasurer, Sebastian Naslund.

Important Reminder! Aida payments are being processed with the account information and addresses, which can be found ad www.aidainternational.org (at FAQ section).
Please remember to include the following information:

1. Who is making the payment
2. What the payment is for
3. Aida organizations; please check your payment status for the current year (150 Euros)  as soon as possible so your country has membership and voting privileges. There remain some unclear Paypal payments from 2009, so please contact Pia to confirm your payment status.

The Aida Assembly email list (Yahoo groups) is now overseen by Pia. Assembly members are requested to check the list to ensure correct contact information so Kimmo can update the list.

The Aida competition rules update will be finalized by Grant and Greg. The judge database will be migrated from the old site to the new following the completion of the vote for the 2010 Championship judges. Project manager, Robert King, assisted by Petar Bojovic, Christan Ernest, and  Sebastian Naslund, have the  Aida statutes version 2010 ready for Board review. After the accounting review is submitted to the Assembly, the Board will arrange for a vote for an official Aida Treasurer.

The next Aida Board meeting is scheduled for May 4, 2010.

If you have any topics that should be discussed by the Board or you would like to volunteer your services to any of the Aida projects – please do not hesitate to contact any of the Board members.

Terry Maas has just announced that the Freediver’s recovery vest he has been working on for 5 years now is working and that they are ready to  produce the product shortly.

Thanks to Terry his writings and books I had something to hold on to when I started freediving in ’97. He was always talking about safety and shallow water blackout. Unfortunately 5 years ago his son died while spearfishing due to a shallow water blackout and his quest to make freediving and spearfishing safe began.

The first reviews seems very promising, although the vest has only been reviewed by spearfishers and I’m wondering what competition freedivers will think about it.

In short the vest comes with a wrist attached diving computer that works pretty much just as any other good freediving computer. The difference here is that you can set parameters; one for max depth and one for max time. If you reach or exceed any of these two, the small pressurized air bottle will inflate the vest by itself. This way you float to the surface and because the inflation devices are situated around your shoulders and chest, you always come out of the water chest up, so that your face is not in the water.

Sounds like an excellent device. Only downside for the moment is the hefty price tag of 3000,- US dollars, which will be a deal breaker for a lot freedivers. We can only hope it becomes a mass production device so that the price gets down to a more reasonable price. But then again, what is a reasonable price to be safe…

For sure more about this device soon! In the mean time check out the website which has some great info and demo’s of the vest online and watch the video.

As reported earlier, this year the AIDA world championships will be a team event that will take place in Japan. The website has just opened and some first information can be found over there. Take a look here.

One of the interesting stuff on the site is the price per athlete to compete, which is set at 690 USD, or 650 if you’re an early-bird. This money if for the whole competition, including trainings, competitions, bus transfers. The price doesn’t include the hotel costs, which I initially thought when seeing this price. For 10 days, in a 2 bedroom room including 2 food vouchers per day, you pay and additional 600 USD. So total will be around 1250 USD, without your flight. I guess some team really will need sponsors this year!

Below the official schedule:

• 30 (June) Opening Party and registration
• 01 (July) Official Training CWT and registration
• 02 Official Training CWT
• 03 CWT day one
• 04 CWT day two
• 05 CWT reserve day
• 06 Official training in pool
• 07 STA day one
• 08 STA day two
• 09 Official training in pool
• 10 DYN -Award Ceremony and Closing party

The 4th Serbian freediving championships took place on last Saturday (more info here). 30 freedivers from 4 countries had a good competition.

There were some interesting performances during this competition. The big one came from Goran Colak who did a big static of 8:35 minutes.

Winner with the men was Domagoj Jakovac with 129,9 points. He did a6:02 min static and a 100 meter without fins. With the women Magda Milas from Croatia was the strongest with 103,8 points. She did a 4:20 min static and a 100 meter without fins.

7 disqualifications, 7 penalties and 2 blackouts in this competition, which is quite a lot in my opinion. 60 performances and 16 problems make it a percentage of 26%.

Congrats to the winners! Here is the link to the complete result lists.

This evening Nanja van der Broek her freediving school “Enker” will organize a static freediving competition in the Netherlands and Shark Freediving will present to compete and document the competition live.

At 20:00 (GMT+1) the warming up will start and at around 20:20 the first official top will take place. The competition will take place at swimmingpool “De Estafette” at the Helsinkilaan 1 in Nieuw Vennip (The Netherlands)

Live videostreaming of the competition depends on internet availability and 3G connectivity, but normally you can expect to see several high performing athletes live on our Shark Freediving Live page.

You can also see the announced performances, start times and updated result lists on that page as well. So have fun and good luck to all the athletes.

It has been somewhat quiet since the appointment of the complete new AIDA Board on January 1st. However, this doesn’t mean they are sitting still and doing nothing.  I thought it would be interesting to publish the first report from the new AIDA executive board that was sent to the AIDA Assembly, so that everybody knows what is going on. Hopefully they start publishing these kind of things publicly by themselves soon.

What do you think about the letter? Leave your comments below!

Report from the AIDA Executive Board

Maria Hovden - Photo By Daan Verhoeven

So our first competition of the year 2010 is over and it was great! Three national records broken and some happy faces.

While there were some organizing problems with regards to the AIDA ranking and our video project, the core of the competition run well and smooth. Thanks to the help of Susan Kluytmans and Erik Skoda for judging the competition, Mario Verhagen for the general help, Marieke Broeksteeg as medical staff and Sanne Buurma for his safety work and video project help.

The competition started with a total of 18 freedivers, but unfortunately in the last week 10 people cancelled and we had to change the setup somewhat. With only 8 people freediving it would be best to give them the perfect dynamic freediving competition experience and we had the right pool to do it in.

Every freediver got 2 dynamic attempts and we kept a very easy to follow 10 minute starting time for each freediver.

In the end there were some great performances done and some personal records, but of course the 200 meter dynamic with fins done by Eric van Riet Paap was for sure the highlight of the competition. Nanja van den Broek completed this by doing a new national record of 155 meters, only hours after returning from Dahab and still the depth in her legs and using all kind of borrowed material.

And of course we have to mention Daan who set the first national record by doing a 175 meter dynamic with fins. But, poor Daan,  then Eric was let loose in the pool and did his 200 meter dive.

It was great to have Sanne, Nanja, Maria, Judith, Peter, Eric, Daan and Marc in the pool and it was for sure fun to see them dive.

There were the normal strange dives, like Eric his crawl over the bottom giving him a total of -145 points. Or Daan doing his upside down dynamic no fins dive. We ended the competition with a nice meal at the swimming pool restaurant.

Click here for the complete result list

It was fun to organize once again and next time will be bigger and better yet again!

Daan saying Hi to the online viewers

The Videos

We setup some camera’s to capture all the action going on so that we could stream everything. Too bad not everything was a success due to limited bandwidth and some other factors, but nevertheless I think you can enjoy the footage we got from the turning point @ 50/150 meters. Watch it here and see the time codes below to watch each turn.

0:16:40 – Peter – 50m
0:26:40 – Daan – 50m – the first turn of a 175 meter dive
0:27:50 – Daan – 150m – only 25 meters to go
0:36:40 – Eric – 50m – did he know already he was going for 200?
0:38:30 – Eric – 150m – only 50 meters to go for a 200 meter dive!
0:46:40 – Marc – 50m
1:08:10 – Sanne – 50m
1:16:40 – Judtih – 50m
1:36:40 – Nanja – 50m – the first turn of her national record dive
1:38:28 – Nanja – 150m – 5 meters later she comes up for a new dutch record
1:46:40 – Peter – 50m
1:56:40 – Daan – 50m – Daan has a message for the viewers
2:08:54 – Eric – 50m – Watch Eric crawl on the floor
2:16:40 – Marc – 50m
2:26:40 – Maria – 50m

Here is the static cam from the corner of the pool. Unfortunately it’s pretty low quality due to the bandwidth limitation.

Mobile Cam Video’s: Judith 1, Maria 1, Peter 1, Daan 1, Eric 1, Marc 1, Sanne 2, Judtih 2, Nanja 2, Peter 2, Daan 2, Eric 2, Marc 2, Maria 2

In 90 minutes the competition will start. We’ve got 4 cameras setup which will bring you live footage above and underwater. Also live discussion box and results. All can be found on the LIVE page.

During the competition I try to update this website.