⌛ Diver plunges 100 meters, unassisted on one breath, to set world record

Diver plunges 100 meters, unassisted on one breath, to set world record

William Trubridge on Monday accomplished what had long been regarded as an impossible feat: swimming to a depth of 100 meters, or 328 feet, on a single breath and with only hands and feet for propulsion.

The New Zealander did not use swim fins; he wore no weights and required no heavy sled during the descent. Nor did he use an inflatable airbag to swiftly reach the surface after his dive.

Rather, he set a new unassisted freediving record and achieved the historic 100-meter mark -- previously attained only in an assisted manner, with weighted sleds and airbags -- while wearing only a thin wetsuit and displaying remarkable power of mind over body.



"It's different than when you use sleds and airbags," Trubridge said of a his dive, made at Dean's Blue Hole in the Bahamas. "Because when you turn around at 100 meters and start swimming back to the surface with just your hands and feet, it can be a little bit daunting because of how much water you have over your head."

A diver cannot always see the surface at 328 feet. It's more than three times deeper than what's considered safe for recreational scuba divers, who must ascend from any significant depth at a painstakingly slow pace to avoid developing embolisms in the bloodstream, associated with breathing compressed air.



Trubridge held his breath for 4 minutes, 10 seconds, from start to finish. In reaching 100 meters he matched a depth first attained by a freediver in 1976, when Jacques Mayol completed his dive using a weighted sled and inflatable airbag. Mayol's exploits were legendary. The Frenchman was portrayed in the 1988 adventure movie "The Big Blue," which delved into the obscure sport of freediving.

Trubidge's accomplishment, however, reveals how far breath-hold diving has evolved, and to what extreme the human body and mind are capable of coping. At 100 meters, lungs fill with blood as a natural means of preventing their collapse. The heart rate slows to the point where a diver can become disoriented, feeling either sleepy or euphoric.

 

Amazing! Thanks KdF
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

 

Thanks Pat! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours also!:D

 

Absolutely Amazing KDA, thanks. Says a lot for the Kiwis. What was the location??

My missus can talk for over 4 minutes without taking a breath, think she might have a chance???? (this is gonna hurt)

 

Dean's Blue Hole in the Bahamas?

 

Thanks KDF. Friend of mine (John ..) died off Hawaii many years ago trying to set a Scuba Record. Left behind a lovely wife and two beautiful kids in Puerto Galera.

Takes a special kind of person to try this stuff .. Why do they do it, because it is there, kind of like climbing everest with Cotton Gloves and Woolly socks with no O2

 

Isn't that John Bennett ...he died on a "normal" tech-dive pretty shallow 45m 2004 in Korea but did set the world record as the first man below 1000 ft in Puerto Galera. Actually he disappeared and declared dead in 2006.

While with Scuba-Gear that kind of stuff can be more or less calculated, plenty of freedivers which go deep-record hunting simply die doing their thing.

Free-diving is a wonderful experience in certain depths, but injuring your body and forcing your air-filled spaces to fill themselves with bodyliquids of any kind is IMHO plain stupid.

Th list of dead worldrecord-holder is long...

 

Rhoody, that IS interesting, will PM you on it ..

 

Dang, I can barely go to the bottom of my bathtub on one breath of air.

 

100M,
Impressive accomplishment!

I knew a guy that once ate 12 hits of 4-way windowpane LSD...the good stuff.
That was impressive also.

Normal people might find a reason not to do either, but the freaks keep us entertained, don't they?