Shark Freediving

Herbert Nitsch

Today at 14:30 local Greek time, Herbert Nitsch did an incredible 107 meter dive in the Skandalopetra discipline. He did this in the city Lindos on the island Rhodos.

Inspired by Haggis Statti, the discipline consists of taking a rock on a rope and letting yourself drop as deep as you can, and coming back up. More info about this spectacular discipline here.

Herbert used a 10 kilo weight and the dive took him 3:58 minutes to complete. He was in no hurry, because before coming up he was blowing some bubble rings and swimming around at depth, performing his famous deco-stops before surfacing.

After this record Herbert is going to prepare for the world champions were he has to defend his title. After that he’s going for a new no limits record and at that same event he wants to get the variable weight record, which is the last discipline in which he hasn’t set a record yet.

The first video is the dive itself and the second one an interview afterwards.

Again some Herbert Nitsch news today. Herbert announced new record attempts between May 9 and 16. Location was first set at Spetses (again), but suddenly was changed to Sharm El Sheikh. Has the sponsorship with his previous main sponsor Alki David,  for the 214 meter no limits dive in 2007, ended?

As usual Herbert inscribed for all the depth disciplines and static, but will probably want to do something that brings him closer to his ultimate goal of -300 meters. Herbert always had the plan to do get to 300 meters depth in 3 years. 200, 250 and 300. He missed last year, and now that there is 3D documentary begin made about his endavour to 300 meters, he will probably do at least 250 during this event. But don’t be surprised if he doesn’t use the break and just goes to 300 meters. Herbert has never been as strong as this year, so why not.

As always, good luck to him! If someone can do it, Herbert is.

It’s been already some time since Herbert Nitsch set his amazing record by doing a 214 meter no limits dive which I extensively covered here on Shark Freediving. During that time the only footage I got to see was some semi-streaming video footage which was not really a very good quality.

I just stumbled upon a great video version of the dive by Dan Burton. It’s more like a video clip! Great video, really worth watching. Don’t forget to click the HD button to see a very high quality version. Enjoy!
http://www.vimeo.com/852929

Last December Herbert Nitsch set a new static world record by holding is breath for 9 minutes and 4 seconds. In the mean time the record has already been broken again by Tom Sietas who did a 9:08 world record time. Nevertheless, it’s still great to watch the video of Herbert. Especially if you see that he tried to get this record by doing 19 attempts on one day!

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Another guest writer here at Shark Freediving. This time it’s Kimmo Lahtinen from Finland, who was present as one of the two judges during Herbert Nitsch his 214 meter no limits dive. Below is Kimmo’s story about this event.

As soon I was selected for Herbert Nitsch assistant judge I started to study possibilities for the success dive under 200m as well as collecting all the data available about Herbert´s gear he was going to use. From the theoretical point of view, based on previous this kind of dives the possibilities did not look a quite courage. To dive under 200m meters gives us a huge amount of difficult challenges which are already known in technical diving: gas toxicity (O2, CO2, N2), DCS problems, extremely narcosis, extreme water pressure and so on. I also got a help from one of the leading Finnish technical diver Matti Anttila to estimate this dive from the technical dive point of view and I guarantee that this idea did not seemed to good to me until I arrived to Spetses.

It took about 20 hours of traveling from Finland to Spetses with bus, airplane and ferry to get to that little but beautiful island far sea in the Greece, with good food and mysterious wine. When I arrived at Spetses with Bill Strömberg, the main judge of this record attempt, I was quite tired. Next morning we although run from our apartment, which was about 3 km from the Alki David´s house to meet Herbert’s dive team. Unfortunately the team was sleeping because of late arrival last evenings training dive. Later on the day we met these guys at wake and saw first time that weird apparatus which these guys called their sledge. It was longer than any other sledge I had seen before as well as full of weird details which I had never seen, including cocoon, the buoyant ”hat” for the freediver. Needles to say that it looked quite weird for the person who has tested and built only balloon based sledges before.

As the official pre meetings with the team they decided that the first official attempt would be 185meters and would be done on Tuesday. While everything was about to begin and Herbert came with his own speedboat it was found out that there was no doctor on dive site. So this meant a no go decision, after all the lessons learned previous accidents with similar attempts. I guess that Herbert was not so happy about that decision. When the judges unpacked all their gears and traveled to shore Herbert did his tiny warm-up variable dive for somewhere 140 meters.

It was then Wednesday and the mood with the diving team was little more tensed and we put all the gear ready again for Herbert’s attempt. I prepared bottom video and sledge video as well as checked good position for Suunto dive computers. When everything was ready it was again Herbert´s turn to arrive. It took some time to put this kind of new sledge to water with its 60 kg weight and all the stuff including sonar on the surface. But Herbert´s team did excellent work and they were ready as they promised, on time. As soon as Herbert has been doing his preparations and was sitting on his sledge everything was about to begin. I will not go in too intense details which can be found with some weird rumors here.

Herbert dove first at 25-30 meters and stop the sledge to fill in eqex (this time 1,5 liter coca cola bottle) to save air for equalizing. Extended mouth fill I guess. With a quite little air in the lungs he dropped down in the bottom where automatic release left 60 kg and his return to surface started immediately without bottom time. Down about 3,5m/s (about 12km/h) is not an easy task and as far I heard they lost a bunch of stuff at training dives including some Paradisia nose plugs. He came up about same speed until 50 meters where he slows down a bit until 10 meters where was his apnea deco stop until his contractions told him to came up. Because this system was couter ballast with balanced weight (same weights at both sides of rope) independent motors was used for taking dive weights up. After 30 sec surface time Herbert was free to go down 10 meters for O2 deco. Well because the team was so excited they almost forgot Herbert and immediately he was underwater going down to 10 meters at 2 meters he got rid of his full-face mask, maybe because of some leaks in it. He found another regulator quite soon but he was not satisfied with it and he dove to 10 meters for O2. It may be needless to say that these kind of tasks are not easy ones specially without any kind of dive masks or what so ever. Maybe I was also a little bit steady by for rescuing to Herbert while I saw this episode despite that I was a judge with no feelings. Although everything went well and the party was about to begin when Herbert resurfaced again. Unfortunately on the way back to shore all the happiness was shot down when we realized as a judges that we were not happy with sledge video. This was also told to Herbert who took it quite cool just telling: ”Ok next time I do not trust anybody, except myself”. Although after some meetings and some votings in Aida board this record was valid. Reason for that was that there was no gas available at the sledge, computers (5 official Suunto computers and 2 F1´s) was ok, we had good real time sonar image of the dive where nothing unusual could be seen, except extraordinary dive with extreme speed.

Because of the tight schedule next dive to 214m was planned for the next day, Thursday. This time I suggested for dive team to focus on and take good care of their hydration and nutrition that they could be capable to focus on every tiny details all day long. It was obvious from the beginning that Alex from Trygons company would be the key person with Herbert of this record attempt and this was also clearly seen this time too. Alex prepared whole sledge almost himself checking everything as well he could. This time dive was like from a diving schoolbook and everything went well. Including safety team taking good care of Herbert forgetting this time to celebrate until all the computers (5 official Suunto computers and couple of destroyed unofficial F1´s) and videos was checked and seen that they were ok. Dive was although done but it was supposed to keep secret until the show dive which was planned to do for the media at the Saturday. Reason for that has been explained better by Herbert at deeperblue.

Show dive was an interesting happening. All the things was done almost similar way except there was no Aida judges at the dive boat until media came with the same boat. As well as if I understood it right there was some Aida judges among the media. After the dive it was interesting to see that maybe Herbert, me and some of the dive team members saw Herbert doing his surface protocol little wrong. Anyway, media got their news show and Herbert had his record already. Maybe I was the almost the only one person who was not quite satisfied for the way this record attempt was published. Maybe next time it would be harder to make the media believe what it going on, maybe not.

There were also some plans for going to variable record at the Sunday but again the team was out of the doctor. I guess there is no doctor in the island or maybe there is only one and he has his vacations at Sundays.

So the attempt was over and I was heading back to home at Monday morning with Bill and Mig (head of the Herbert’s dive team).

I guess that this dive ended one of the periods of the no limits dives and we entered to the new age also in this discipline. I would like to call it technical freediving now while most of the things are quite same kind compared to blended gas dives (see more at: www.gue.com). I also think that this dive was success and it is really possible to go even deeper with this kind of team and gear available. This dive was possible from my point of view because of:

- Alex from Trygons was capable to solve almost impossible tasks (including totally new kind of construction of the sledge with the new materials and special techniques)
- Alki was the main sponsor behind this attempt (I will remember this nice guy with his golf car)
- Dive team did a huge amount of work almost around a clock (Karsten, Mig, Alexandros etc.)
- Sledge was quick enough to leave some time for the deco stop for the freediver near the surface
- Dive was done almost without air in the lungs (on the way back air was transferring to lungs while expanding in the sinuses)
- Herbert knew what he was doing and this attempt was prepared and trained really well
- All the backup systems really worked with this sledge

There are also some unbelievable and beautiful pictures at Fred Buyle his site and Dan Burton his site about this attempt. There are also some more images from me to be found here.

Kimmo Lahtinen, Finland Aida judge level C

Jeff Ayliffe is providing this interview with Herbert Nitsch about his deep dive. Jeff does the sports reports and outdoor coverage simulcast on 2 radio stations, 567 Cape Talk in Capetown, and Talk Radio 702 in Johannesburg and that’s why you don’t have to read the interview but you can listen to it. Just click on the icon below and the rest speaks for itself.

Download link

You can find some more info about Jeff on his website.

Well, I guess I’m right. Read this article I wrote and I quote my last paragraph here:

And for people who want to start a conspiracy theory; look at the date mentioned in the dive profile. It says June 14th! That’s two days ago! Did Herbert already do this depth then? Or is it a simple mistake from AIDA?

So, did Herbert do the same thing as what Tom Sietas did? Yes, he did! Herbert did already dive to 214 meters on Thursday, June 14th without any media and press. And he repeated this dive on Saturday, June 16th. How am I so sure? Besides the dive profile that AIDA published, the ebay auction mentioning that the dive took place on that date and most of all you can look up the world record he did in the AIDA record list, and it’s dated as June 14th, the first time he did it. You can take a look here.

So, they pulled a big one on us, but it’s understandable with all this media pressure and sponsorship these days, that failure is not an option. Now everybody must be convinced that it wasn’t a lucky shot! Two times in 3 days to 214 meters for Herbert… wow!

Update: So I had a talk with Bill Stromberg, president of AIDA International. And he confirmed my idea of what happened. June 14th was the real deal, and June 16th was the show dive for the media. This way freediving was marketed the best way possible without any possible ugly stuff videotaped or anything. The funny thing is that on the ‘’show” dive there were 3 Greek AIDA judges on site as spectators and they did not see that it was not the real dive. And they even didn’t see that Herbert didn’t do his surface protocol the right way. Of course delaying announcements of new world records can only be done with record attempts and not with competitions. And it’s in the best of AIDA and all the freedivers that the media is happy with us, so in my opinion this is totally acceptable, as long as afterwards everything is honestly told to the hardcore freediving community.

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function __RP_Callback_Helper(str, strCallbackEvent, splitSize, func){var event = null;if (strCallbackEvent){event = document.createEvent(\’Events\’);event.initEvent(strCallbackEvent, true, true);}if (str && str.length > 0){var splitList = str.split(\’|\’);var strCompare = str;if (splitList.length == splitSize)strCompare = splitList[splitSize-1];var pluginList = document.plugins;for (var count = 0; count = sSrc.length){if (strCompare.indexOf(sSrc) != -1){func(str, count, pluginList, splitList);break;}}}}if (strCallbackEvent)document.body.dispatchEvent(event);}function __RP_Coord_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Left = splitList[0];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Top = splitList[1];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Right = splitList[2];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Bottom = splitList[3];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, \’rp-js-coord-callback\’, 5, func);}function __RP_Url_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback_Vid = splitList[0];pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback_Parent = splitList[1];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, \’rp-js-url-callback\’, 3, func);}function __RP_TotalBytes_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_TotalBytes_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_TotalBytes_Callback_Bytes = splitList[0];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, null, 2, func);}function __RP_Connection_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Connection_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Connection_Callback_Url = splitList[0];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, null, 2, func);}

function __RP_Callback_Helper(str, strCallbackEvent, splitSize, func){var event = null;if (strCallbackEvent){event = document.createEvent(‘Events’);event.initEvent(strCallbackEvent, true, true);}if (str && str.length > 0){var splitList = str.split(‘|’);var strCompare = str;if (splitList.length == splitSize)strCompare = splitList[splitSize-1];var pluginList = document.plugins;for (var count = 0; count = sSrc.length){if (strCompare.indexOf(sSrc) != -1){func(str, count, pluginList, splitList);break;}}}}if (strCallbackEvent)document.body.dispatchEvent(event);}function __RP_Coord_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Left = splitList[0];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Top = splitList[1];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Right = splitList[2];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Bottom = splitList[3];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, ‘rp-js-coord-callback’, 5, func);}function __RP_Url_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback_Vid = splitList[0];pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback_Parent = splitList[1];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, ‘rp-js-url-callback’, 3, func);}function __RP_TotalBytes_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_TotalBytes_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_TotalBytes_Callback_Bytes = splitList[0];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, null, 2, func);}function __RP_Connection_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Connection_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Connection_Callback_Url = splitList[0];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, null, 2, func);}

Herbert made it! He made an incredible dive to 214 meters / 702 feet. From the AIDA site:

New World Record by Herbert Nitsch, Austria in the AIDA sled discipline No Limit, 214meter/702feet is the new record. With this dive Herbert confirm that he is the deepest man ever on this planet. The dive was a fantastic 29 meter deeper than his previous record of 185m. The record took place on Spetses, Greece. The dive was monitored by 3 SUUNTO Dive Computers that gives us an estimate of the dive profile, and you can download the dive profile here. The dive was also monitored by two Liquivision dive computers, F1 – but unfortunately they both broke down before reaching 200m.

Total dive time of the dive was 4:24 min. After 16 seconds Herbert arrived at 22 meters to fill his EqEx. After that he traveled in a time of 74 seconds with a speed of 2,6 meters per second to 214 meters. With a very short bottom time of around 7 seconds he speed back up tot 60 meters in only 54 seconds, which makes an average speed of 2,85 meters per second.

At 60 meters it was time to take it slow to prevent DCS, so he went from 60 meters tot 9,5 meters in 50 seconds. And after hanging there for around 30 seconds at that depth he slowly ascended further to the surface in another 24 seconds. Amazing dive with very high speeds! The fastest moment going down was 3.1 m/s and the fastest coming backup was 4 m/s.

FilmOn has provided some stunning footage to watch! You really have to checkout the video. It’s amazing that Herbert can concentrate like that, between all the noise that is going on. For your convenience you can watch the clip from FilmOn below. The original video can be found here.

http://www.shark-eye.com/flv/freediving/herbert-214.flv

So that’s that for Herbert? Or will there be a surprise tomorrow? The judges are available until tomorrow as planned with AIDA, so if Herbert wants he can try for the variable world record as well. Or is it party time tonight?

The AIDA report also says that the dive was monitored by 3 Suunto dive computers and 2 Liquivision F1 computers. The 2 liquivision died before reaching 200 meters. That’s not good advertising for Eric Fattah, the maker of these computers. I wonder what his reaction will be about this. So a total of 3 F1’s are destroyed… wow!

And for people who want to start a conspiracy theory; look at the date mentioned in the dive profile. It says June 14th! That’s two days ago! Did Herbert already do this depth then? Or is it a simple mistake from AIDA?

This article will constantly be updated with all the news until tomorrow. Any news coming in tomorrow will be in a new article.

Update: Eric Fattah informed me of some wrong information that’s in this article. So below is the correction, with an apoligize to Eric.
- There were 2 F1’s used during Herbert’s event
- As of June 16, 2007 (2 days after the last real dive), I was informed by Bill Stromberg that one F1 had functioned fine, and the other F1 had suffered a failure of the pressure sensor (I still have the Skype chat record if you want)
- Further, even an F1 with a failed pressure sensor is still a useful device, and can be used for static competitions, but not for diving.  The F1 has no airspace inside, therefore it cannot be ‘destroyed’ like mentioned on your website
- The F1 was discontinued in December 2006
- The F1’s used in Herbert’s attempt were no longer under warranty (warranty expired in May)
- The CEO of Liquivision is Margaret Malewski, not Eric Fattah

function __RP_Callback_Helper(str, strCallbackEvent, splitSize, func){var event = null;if (strCallbackEvent){event = document.createEvent(\\\\\\\\\\’Events\\\\\\\\\\’);event.initEvent(strCallbackEvent, true, true);}if (str && str.length > 0){var splitList = str.split(\\\\\\\\\\’|\\\\\\\\\\’);var strCompare = str;if (splitList.length == splitSize)strCompare = splitList[splitSize-1];var pluginList = document.plugins;for (var count = 0; count = sSrc.length){if (strCompare.indexOf(sSrc) != -1){func(str, count, pluginList, splitList);break;}}}}if (strCallbackEvent)document.body.dispatchEvent(event);}function __RP_Coord_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Left = splitList[0];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Top = splitList[1];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Right = splitList[2];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Bottom = splitList[3];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, \\\\\\\\\\’rp-js-coord-callback\\\\\\\\\\’, 5, func);}function __RP_Url_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback_Vid = splitList[0];pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback_Parent = splitList[1];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, \\\\\\\\\\’rp-js-url-callback\\\\\\\\\\’, 3, func);}function __RP_TotalBytes_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_TotalBytes_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_TotalBytes_Callback_Bytes = splitList[0];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, null, 2, func);}function __RP_Connection_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Connection_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Connection_Callback_Url = splitList[0];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, null, 2, func);} function __RP_Callback_Helper(str, strCallbackEvent, splitSize, func){var event = null;if (strCallbackEvent){event = document.createEvent(\\\\\\\\\’Events\\\\\\\\\’);event.initEvent(strCallbackEvent, true, true);}if (str && str.length > 0){var splitList = str.split(\\\\\\\\\’|\\\\\\\\\’);var strCompare = str;if (splitList.length == splitSize)strCompare = splitList[splitSize-1];var pluginList = document.plugins;for (var count = 0; 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count = sSrc.length){if (strCompare.indexOf(sSrc) != -1){func(str, count, pluginList, splitList);break;}}}}if (strCallbackEvent)document.body.dispatchEvent(event);}function __RP_Coord_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Left = splitList[0];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Top = splitList[1];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Right = splitList[2];pluginList[index].__RP_Coord_Callback_Bottom = splitList[3];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, \\\\\’rp-js-coord-callback\\\\\’, 5, func);}function __RP_Url_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback_Vid = splitList[0];pluginList[index].__RP_Url_Callback_Parent = splitList[1];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, \\\\\’rp-js-url-callback\\\\\’, 3, func);}function __RP_TotalBytes_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_TotalBytes_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_TotalBytes_Callback_Bytes = splitList[0];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, null, 2, func);}function __RP_Connection_Callback(str){var func = function(str, index, pluginList, splitList){pluginList[index].__RP_Connection_Callback = str;pluginList[index].__RP_Connection_Callback_Url = splitList[0];};__RP_Callback_Helper(str, null, 2, func);} function __RP_Callback_Helper(str, strCallbackEvent, splitSize, func){var event = null;if (strCallbackEvent){event = document.createEvent(\\\\’Events\\\\’);event.initEvent(strCallbackEvent, true, true);}if (str && str.length > 0){var splitList = str.split(\\\\’|\\\\’);var strCompare = str;if (splitList.length == splitSize)strCompare = splitList[splitSize-1];var pluginList = document.plugins;for (var count = 0; 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Today it was media day and some technical fine tuning. Unfortunately there was a slight problem with the EqEx. It broke down at 50 meter and Herbert lost all his air, so he couldn’t equalize anymore. Herbert stretched his eardrums and maybe has some sinus trauma.

As I’m writing this the team is discussing if the attempt should take place tomorrow, as planned, or be rescheduled to Sunday. Coach Marcus Greatwood is very clear and says that it is a No-Go for tomorrow and that they should postpone until Sunday. Of course all the attending media, TV and sponsors say Herbert has to dive tomorrow!

Now, it’s not new for Herbert to break his eardrum during a dive (Cyprus 2003), but hopefully he’s smart enough to say no to tomorrow and do a good dive on Sunday! In the end it’s his own decision and choice. Any updates will of course be posted here asap!

Update on D-Day: It’s a go for Herbert! They checked out his ears this morning, and although it’s not 100%, he’s going for it. Good luck to Herbert today!

After yesterday’s post I’ve got even more intrigued about all the stuff that Herbert is taking with him into the deep. So here is a detailed explanation of all the stuff he carries. I must say I never would have expected such a development in no limits technology from the standard sled, weight, tank and balloon. So Herbert and team, after this event you can you also invent cars running on water and a small portable “beam me up, scotty” device, while you’re at it? Thanks!

First take a look at the picture. If you click it it will get much bigger, so you can see the details. Let’s start at the top.

1. Lanyard “O” ring around rope
This one is clear. The lanyard he’s attached to is attached to the line above everything else. This way he will never be trapped with his lanyard under something stuck at the line.

2. Buoyant “CH” for ascent
I talked already several times about this device. Great idea to use such shaped foam device. Never problems with empty bottles or filling the lifting balloon. It has so much positive buoyancy that it can take Herbert up with speeds up to 3m/s including the whole sled. Without the weights of course! They are released at the bottom.

3. Liquid Vision Glasses
these are small goggles that have lenses in them. The goggles themselves are filled with a saline liquid solution, so that you don’t have to equalize the goggles. In the goggles are special lenses so that it’s still possible for Herbert to see everything around him, even with the water inside the goggles.

4. Quick Release Harness
This is the harness that attaches Herbert to the CH (2) in such a way that’s easy for him to detach from it when he is almost at the surface so that he can make a controlled ascent in the last 20 meters and not just burst out of the water. This way he is controlling possible DCS problems.

5. HF.CC.EqEx
Stands for: Hands Free Coca Cola Equalization Extension Tool. The Coca Cola bottle was much bigger than the 1st HF.PO unit that Herbert used until now and his previous records and a lot more hydrodynamic. If you look at the picture (taken at 20m) it is nearly full and thus a bigger bottle is being considered to eliminate the possibility of “overfill”. Herbert fills this bottle around 20-30 meters depth with his own air and at a certain depth where equalizing is nearly impossible Herbert takes back his own air from this bottle to equalize properly. This thing is working so well that Herbert has no problems equalizing at all, so that makes his goal of reaching 1000 feet in no limits a big step closer. The judges make sure that the bottle is filled 100% with water before Herbert starts his dive, so that no air from the surface is taken down with him. The original HF.CC.EqEx was lost at sea yesterday and Coca Cola headquarters just made it a severity 1 to get a new bottle to them with a private jet! Only Coca Cola bottles work, if you take Pepsi it will fail!

6. Brake (Stop Position)
As Herbert is stopping several times during his dive he has to have a good brake. Not only for stopping, but also for controlling his speed a little. If you look at point 6 in the picture you see that he got a large leaver in his hand pulling it up (can also be pushed down). The leverage pinches the 11 mm rope, so that Herbert can control the sled.

7. Lanyard belt (quick release)
For safety Herbert is attached to the rope with a weight belt and a rope that goes to position one, on top of everything else. You can see that the rope is fastened with some good old trustful duct tape to the CH. This way it doesn’t go around a lot during the dive and it stays in its place.

8. Camera & Torches attached to “FP”
The camera and light are very close to Herbert in a very high angle. Not what we’re used to see with the standard sled. Everything is setup in such a way that it will minimize drag. Camera is mandatory for record attempts.

9. Hi.V.E.L.I
Stands for High Velocity Elastic Liquid Inhibitors. I guess they prevent water rushing into Herbert his wetsuit through his feet at the high speeds he’s traveling with.

10. Hydrodynamic Feet retainers
Well, they do know how to use interesting names! Just a place where Herbert can put his feet in, in such a way that they are pointed downwards and increase hydrodynamics.

11. Sled weight quick release mech.
This is the mechanism that release the weight (12) that will take Herbert to the abyss.

12. Sled Weight
65 kilograms of weight are enough to give him a speedy ride to the bottom!

You can see an F1/X1 dive computer on the left wrist of Herbert. It died during his 195 meter dive! So I guess, that was too much even for this computer.

Tomorrow is D-day for Herbert. Will he manage to dive to 214 meters? Go see it live here!