Enjoy Freediving Blog

7 competitors are going to be diving to between 100 and 105 meters tomorrow. This is outstanding because it was in 2004 when Carlos Coste set the world record at 102m breaking through the 100 m mark. Good Luck Everyone!

Something new at this competition is the use of a glow in the dark rope for the competition line. Because the blue hole has only has a 20m opening at the surface light fades quickly beyond 50m. So the glowing rope gives the athelete a point of reference. Even though the rope glows for many hours after being recharged we still pull the line up every 1.5 hours to recharge it on the platform.

glorope

We mentioned earlier that we would talk about other safety systems being used here at the world championship. To explain the counter ballest system we first need to explain that in Freedive depth events an athelete swims down to a preanounced depth. At that depth is what we call a bottom plate. Attached to that bottom plate are tags that the freediver is to retrieve. Under the bottom plate is a 20Kg weight, a light and a bottom camera to record the performance. The rope that attaches to the bottom plate is premeasured while wet and under stress. Markers are placed on the rope so that the rope can easily be moved up and down to the announced depth. In this case the rope runs through two blocks at the surface and off the back of the platform. The rope that is off the oposite side of the platform has a 40Kg weight so that if the rope is released from the clam cleats on the platform the heavy 40Kg weight will sink and will pull the bottom plate to the surface. Because the athelete is attached to the competition line with a 1m lanyard the diver will also be pulled to the surface. The setup here is really nice because a lot of rope is exposed to the surface and during our trial activation 4 people helped the rope run in the direction of the counter ballest significantly increasing it’s speed. Briging a diver to the surface at about 1.5 m/s.

Igor Liberti is the official photographer of the 2009 AIDA World Campioships. He has generously sent me some proofs to share with our readers. If you are interested in his work please check out www.apnea.ch

A great day of diving today. All competitors had clean dives but two of them turned early due to equalization trouble. Jana Strain, Canada’s only Female competitor did a 54m CWT (Constant WeighT with fins) dive today. She had anounced 62m but turned early. If Jana reached 62m she would have made it to the final. We look forward to seeing her in the finals in the CNF (Constant weight No Fins) catigory.

Good Luck Jana!