The Last Dive

[Dinger]

IMHO the biggest mistake the Rouses made was that they went ahead and dived to that depth - about 70 mtrs on air - that is mad especially when they had been taught to use trimix - it came down to cost apparently.  That and the fact that the conditions were awful - 6-8 ft waves.  Penetration is very risky and perhaps even more so in a U-boat that is cramped and with cables hanging etc but to do a penetration on air is not good at all.  They did seem to be highly skilled divers that made some poor decisions and overestimateed their aility to cope with being that narked - we must note however that even though Chrissy Jnr got trapped his father was able to go in and get him out which did take alot of skill and balls and that had they found their stage bottles they would have probably been ok.  I dont know how they missed them - I suppose the confusion and the narcosis and panic led to that and that the one stage that they did find malfunctioned - the valve seemed faulty.  As with most incidents there was a combination of errors.
Dinger

[Dinger]

Simon,
       I got the book of amazon look there mate you can get that book Deep Descent and The Last Dive together for about £20 or so - I just ordered Deep Descent and Fatal Depth for £22 or something. Interested in both after reading The Last Dive - i use amazon alot and their service is very good - no problems at all with them.
Anyway the ISBN for Bernie Chowdhury's book The Last Dive is 0-06-093259-7
Dinger

[Sandman]

I've also just finished reading this book and to be honest I was amazed they lasted as long as they did, admittedly they did a lot of dives in only a few years, but how much of it was spent in the local quarry?  The descriptions of the dives done on the Andrea Doria where also an accident waiting to happen.  I know this was all done over 10 years ago but doing deep air dives and then doing deco on O2 but sticking to an air deco plan was hardly cutting edge stuff.  Why spend 2-3 hours hanging around on the shot line for no reason and why were they getting onto O2 at 60 feet or did I miss read that bit?

I don't think either of the Rouse's wanted to do the U-Who dive on the day but neither of them wanted to back down to the other and this ego trip ended up killing them both.

It was a good read and I'll probably read it again in the future although I did get a bit sick of the author going on about how things would have been different if in water communications had been used, I don't know of any sport/technical divers who use that sort of stuff even now.

Like the man said there is nothing down there worth dying for.

Cheers

Simon

[JohnK]

I thought this was a great read - informative and lots of lessons learnt.

Pity the mind set of the Rouses was so macho - they may have been alive today if the mindset was right - regardless of the suicidal deep air dives.

This is a good book on which to learn what NOT to do. Having said that, some of the stuff was cutting edge and like a lot of advancements in life - someones gotta die pushing the limits - shame really but sobering as well.

[kinetic]

Hi,

Just ordered the book for the wife for Christmas....after the debate above I'm looking forward to it.

Someone mentioned/suggested that attachment to the line in cave/wreck diving was not done....it should not be done...

For me, the only time I dive attached to a line is when i do some ice diving....caves/caverns/wrecks I've always followed, but never been attached to a line....

I met some French divers over the summer on some cave dives in Italy and they insisted on being attached to the line. I waited until they were out.....

Regards.

Graham

[cthomas]

<font color='#FF0000'>how much did you all pay for 'The Last Dive'?? i found it in a £1 bookshop new, in may i think.

diving that day was stupid, the waves were terrible, the plan was worse. it was ego that killed the pair.

some of the other stuff mentioned in the book like the guy who claimed PO2 of 1.6 was for wimps, who consequently died, the guys who had 2 goody bags of plates (greedy barstewards) and the knife through the drysuit were stupid!

in conclusion, the book was a good read about some stupid 'stunts'

chris