Deepest Scuba Dive In Seawater - World Record Attempt Support The First Man To Dive To 350m

Ahmed Gabr, a Dive Instructor and Technical Diver of 14 years experience is attempting to smash the current deepest dive world record of 318m (Nuno Gomez) with a dive to 350m. His attempt has been assessed and accepted by Guinness. Ahmed’s World Record Attempt on the 18th of September 2014, will be in the crystal clear waters of the Red Sea, off the coast of Dahab, South Sinai, Egypt.

It will take 14 hours, and use about 90 tanks, breathed by Ahmed and his in-water support team of 14 multinational divers from H2O Divers Dahab.

So we have previously given you an insight into Ahmed, but what about his team and their motivation for supporting this dive?

Lets start with what everyone does within the team 

Divers 

Jaimie Browne (America)
Jenny Lord (UK)
Alex Heyes (UK)
Sameh Sokar (Egypt)
Dom Gibbings (UK)
Khalid Helmy (Egypt/UK)
Kim Britten (UK)
Frank Varenhorst (The Netherlands) 
Dan Goodman (UK)
Catherine Wilson (UK)
Brian Crossland (UK)
Khaled Sakr (Egypt)
Audry Legros (France)
Laura Dinraths (Belgium) 

So how did this team get together and why are they involved?  Lets start by how; well the initial link was between Ahmed and Khalid. They both undertook their Instructor Trainer course together, so when Ahmed was thinking about who he wanted in his team the first person he called upon was Khalid.   

Khalid is one of the owners of H2O Dive Centre in Dahab, so he called on his fellow owners of the dive centre (who are all also divers) and very quickly Alex, Frank and Laura came on board.  The rest of the team grew as the project expanded and additional divers and skills were needed for the team.

Each diver has their own motivation for undertaking this dive and the pre dive training.  One motivation that isn’t there is financial gain as no one is being paid to complete this dive.  There is a lot of work involved leading up to this dive and each diver is putting many hours in not just on the actual training dives but also in the preparation.  Here are some snap shots of the motivation of the team

Khalid Helmy, “To be involved in this project really allows myself to push my knowledge and experience in deep diving, I’m an Instructor Trainer in Tech diving, but no one has planned a dive to this depth before, so this is really pushing my skills in dive planning”

Jenny Lord, “I love deep diving and this allows me to expand my experience at depth.  Maybe in the future I’ll try for the deepest female scuba diver!”

Frank Varenhorst “I have been a commercial diver prior to moving into scuba instructing, for these dives I get to develop the hardware for the dive (the deco ladder and the pyramid for the actual dive line) and ensure it is executed on the day correctly.  Anytime in the water is perfect for me, that’s how I roll”

Brian Crossland “I’m a freedive instructor in my day to day life, but this project fascinates me, to the extent that I’ve already taken my first tech diving course.  I think they asked me on board as they knew I wouldn’t use much air anyway!”

A run down of the day of the dive and how the team works together

Team Deployment – These are the surface support team, and the group who check all the equipment is in the right place, as well as deploying the line, deco ladder, deco gases and floating pyramid which holds everything up.  

This team has an earlier start and they need to get to the dive site first to ensure all tanks are set up at the dive site in order of use, the pyramid, line and deco ladder needs to be deployed at the actual dive site and then the stages are placed at each level along the deco ladder.

Team Ahmed – This is the deep divers as well as Ahmed himself.

Once Team Ahmed has arrived a final briefing of the dive itself is undertaken so every member of the team knows not only their dive times but also the whole of the dive plan.

The dive plan is then undertaken, with Ahmed being towed out to the dive line first with a DPV, the rest of the day is taken up as per the plan.  

Each diver is on a twenty minute warning prior to their dive to have time to prepare.  There is also one diver always on standby to be able to deal with any communications with the dive team in water.

Once the dive is complete there is a hot debrief about what went well and improvements needed and the deployment team remove the kit from the dive site.  A full debrief is undertaken the next day for lessons learnt of the dive and how it can be improved.  It does tend to be a long day! 

For more information please contact us at:

Email us at:  info@ahmedgabr.com
 

PRESS CONTACTS 

Dan Goodman / Catherine Wilson 

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