Scuba Diving: Suunto Vitek Ascent rates

[Lee Bell]

> What sort of ascent rate does the Vitek use?

Slow, very slow. Several of us have been shouting warnings about the ultra
conservative Suunto computers for years. Check out your partial pressure
and depth limits and you'll find that your computer doesn't do them right
either.

[rmacrae]

Hello all,
I've done some more calculations using the profile information
used to draw the graph.

While the overall ascent from 34m to 6m was at a rate of 6M/min the detail
wasn't quite as smooth as the graph led me to believe.
I suspect the graph drawing software is using some sort of smoothing rather
than just join the dots?

At 16M I rose 2.2M in 10 seconds, which works out at 13.2M/min.
At 14M I rose 1.8M in 10 seconds, which works out at 10.8M/min.
At 7M I rose 1.5M in 10 seconds, which works out at 9.0M/min.
Everything else on the ascent was roughly 1m per interval or 6M/sec between
34M and 6M.

These were the 3 events that showed up as SLOWs in the profile data and graph
but only the first one showed up as a SLOW on the Vitek and in the picture
of the vitek in the top right of the graph when you move through the dive
in Dive Manager. All of these are below BSAC's ascent rate guideline of
15M/min.

I suspect the Vitek's ascent rate is not linear all the way to the surface
so the last one might be justified as I'm getting close to the surface but
BSACs recommeded ascent rate from 6m to the surface is still 6M/min.

I guess what I've learned is

1) The graph won't show up short relatively fast ascents, other than by the
SLOW symbols, the graph can still look smooth.
2) Not all SLOW events are reported on the Vitek screen.
3) I didn't realise just how conservative the Vitek ascent rate is.
4) My ascent wasn't as text book as I thought it was.

Thanks for your time guys,

Ron.

[Cliff Coggin]

<rmacrae> wrote in message
news:c40c377853dfc8cbb88cc95ef566@news.btinternet. com...
>
> Are you saying that if I raised my arm quickly, for example to adjust my
> mask, and the sample was taken just as I did this I'd get a slow?

Exactly.

Cliff.