Yup.  What's going on here is that we are operating under a default
assumption that any published table would thus represent an undefined
but "acceptable" risk.

This old Navy table simply illustrates what happens when this assumption
gets "bent" by using an older product that had a different (higher) risk.

I agree that a 44 minute delay is clearly abusing the Navy's model as
written, and its probably an oversight that there's no footnote to limit
the rule, such as to prohibit extending a delay/stop to beyond that
depth's no-stop limit as you suggestted.  

However, by the same token, if the criteria was merely to spend a total
of 62 minutes underwater with no other profile restriction except that
it must at least momentarily touch 120fsw, the multilevel intermediary
depth of 30fsw could have been used instead, and there was no time limit
at this depth on this old table.  

Incorrect.  The old USN tables definition of bottom time was from the
surface until the moment that you started your ascent back up, at a rate
of 60ft/min.  It is because of this definition that the additional rule
for accounting for slowed/delayed ascents was necessary.

And here's another:

If we want to go beyond merely bending our implied default risk
assumption and clearly break it, the Navy's risk-based research states
that we can do a square profile to 120fsw for 40 minutes as a no-deco
dive...95% of the time.  Yup, the other 5% of the time, we get a DCS hit.

Granted, at 40 minutes, this falls short of our 62 minute criteria, but
it got this far without doing any multi-leveling whatsoever.  

And IMO, this really gets to what I believe is the real underlying
element of your claim:  that its a lot easier to do a multilevel dive
with a computer than with a table.

If that indeed is your point, I wholeheartedly agree with it:  it is
easier to multilevel with a computer and thus, gain more bottom time.  

But by the same token, the computer's still merely a tool, so there will
be "tables"-based ways of accomplishing the effectively same thing.  Its
simply not going to be as easy to do, nor are you likely to gain the
last 5%.  But you should be able to get 80% of the way there without too
great of difficulty...that's effectively what the Wheel represents.

-hh

   Yeah, 20 minutes requires a 2 minute stop by the table, but, I said 15
minutes.

   But you're too hell bent on being right to realize you've been had.

Curtis

   Oh, it's a fact that you use them for that.  I admit you and most
recreational divers do.

   It's also a fact that I can manage quite well doing typical boat dives
without one.  That must bother you.

   Yes, it is an attempt to say table dives are inferior, tossing in a
"bounce" dive beyond the 60-100 FSW "useful" ranges of Nitrox to show how
table use gives a shorter dive.

   Otherwise, you would not have made a misleading statement like  "If you
don't mind very short dives to stay within deco limits", emphasis on "very
short."

   And I took the time to look up the EAD for 21%.......damn.

Curtis