Personal Experience Question: Penetration for Intro Diver?

[malreynolds921]

I am new to this site, and fairly new to cave diving, but I heard something this weekend that made me ask this question.

How far can you penetrate into a cave on an intro dive? This would mean turning on 1/6ths and staying on gold line.

I'm not asking as a "penetration goal" in diving. I honestly believe that penetration goals are stupid while diving, and your "goal" is to enjoy your time while diving to your limits. I ask because as I get better at diving, I have a better SAC rate, and am generally more comfortable in the water, and therefore, go a little farther into each cave I dive.

OBVIOUSLY each person's degree of penetration will be dependent on their tank size, type of rigging, air consumption, type and depth of cave, and many other factors that I have not listed above, but I just wanted to know what most people would consider their "average" penetration.

[Sh0use]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, I was told that the penetration limit for Intro divers was 1000ft. So it depends which organization you did your training with.

[Northernone]

On the tdisdi webpage it states for into to cave:

Penetration is limited to the “rule of thirds,” OR 1/6th if using doubles to a maximum depth of 40 metres/130 feet.

Various organizations differ.

Regards,
Cameron

[FW]

...How far can you penetrate into a cave on an intro dive? This would mean turning on 1/6ths and staying on gold line....

Besides SAC rate, depth will determine how far you can go on a given amount of gas (6ths, 3rds, etc.)

All training agencies have different rules, ask your instructor if there is a distance limit, or only gas limit.

[MikeT]

I've not heard of a distance limit, only gas as that is the critical limiting factor. You have to ask yourself however, even if I can penetrate 1000', is it wise to do so?

There are a lot of skills to develop and tons of cave to see in the first say, 600' of our local systems. It sounds like so far you are going about the right way of conservative, progressive penetration.

[tbone1004]

also important to remember the tanks that were being used when that rule was first implemented. Sixths of a pair of 72's is a far cry from a sixth with lp121's...

[ARY]

I would add to commonly known rules the visibility, flow and accumulated team errors count on a given dive. Most people will be feeling uncomfortable when those worsened any way but folks who are trained to be mission oriented might suppress the feeling.

[Jax]

Double 100s or 85s filled to 3600 get me to 600 feet in low flow, 500 in high flow, at ~100'. If one is in the Yucatan, I could see 1/6th getting a person to 1000 in their ~30' depth.

[MarkR]

also important to remember the tanks that were being used when that rule was first implemented. Sixths of a pair of 72's is a far cry from a sixth with lp121's...

I never heard my instructor even mention a 1/6th rule back in '91. If I am correct, the NACD rules back then were to limit to single tank. And 104s and 95s seemed to be the most common tank for most of the guys I knew around then. I do think the 1/6th rule makes sense, you could dive some massive single LP130 if you were really trying to push the rules, .. but why?


I do remember a point where I was not allowed to dive my doubles at Ginnie or Peacock without an instructor with me.

[FW]

I never heard my instructor even mention a 1/6th rule back in '91. If I am correct, the NACD rules back then were to limit to single tank. And 104s and 95s seemed to be the most common tank for most of the guys I knew around then. I do think the 1/6th rule makes sense, you could dive some massive single LP130 if you were really trying to push the rules, .. but why?


I do remember a point where I was not allowed to dive my doubles at Ginnie or Peacock without an instructor with me.

That is why the "new" 6ths rule, so you can dive doubles as an Intro diver.