Apparently he has resigned as Project Director. Sounds like his
involvement in the diving end of it will be scaled back as well.

Brian
Edmonton, Alberta
www.mossmanscubaventures.com

-----Original Message-----
From: George Irvine [mailto:girvine@bellsouth.net]
Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 2:43 PM
To: Wkpp@Yahoogroups. Com
Subject: [wkpp] Casey taking over as Project Director

I have asked Casey to take over as Director of the WKPP. He has done a
great job as Project Coordinator, and is the best person for the job of
Director. I will not be involved going forward with running any aspect of
the Project, and as such will vacate my seat on the Board of Directors.
As most of you may be aware, my father asked me some time ago to retire
from the bond business and come into business with him. He has since made me
President of his holding company, and more recently turned over the entire
operation to me while he himself has little involvement in the business
anymore other than teaching me what he knows and responding to my requests
for advice, when I can even get him to come into the office at all. He is 76
now, and both he and my mother have health issues that could have been
disastrous for the companies had something happened to him without this
change having taken place. I was not expecting such a quick transition, and
have assumed a responsibility and competitive challenge beyond anything I
have ever experienced before. I have hundreds of employees depending on me,
and a position in our industry that leaves me nowhere to go but down if I am
not totally on top of my game.

I can no longer take the time to participate in any meaningful way with
the Project, and as such am not at all up to speed on who is who or what is
what, and can not make good decisions from that platform, if indeed I can
even show up to dive. Casey can and will. I would hope that all of you will
give Casey the degree of cooperation that you gave me, and can assure you
all that he is a lot harder and tougher than I am , and would not suggest
putting him to the test. I used to get pissed and yell and scream - he does
neither, he just acts.

The scooter thing is a full blown business for me now, so any help I can
provide there will be forthcoming as always, but the diving related stuff I
will not have time for. Everyone should be on the same page with all of this
now anyway, and you all certainly have a template from the vast experience
of the WKPP from which to operate without asking me about it. On the
scooters, Pina is setting up a list to discuss issues and answers as far as
the mechanics of these devices. For procedural issues, the WKPP has that
down cold.

I will try to keep some diving involvement, if only for the fun of it
when I can, and Pina of course loves the Project and has the time to dive
and be otherwise involved. In reality Casey has been doing all the work
while I have only done a handful of dives with the Project in the last
couple of years, and all of those were with Jarrod or Casey, so I am not
exactly doing anyone any good as far as teaching anyone anything and
certainly will not be missed in that regard.

One good thing about this is that those who hate me in the diving
"community" will not have me to complain about, and certainly without me to
focus on, there is no consensus against the WKPP to drive any threats to the
longevity of the Project.

The WKPP is the pinnacle of diving - please keep it that way for your own
sakes, and for the sake of all whom you would influence by your example.

Subscription/removal requests to WernerChris@msn.com.

Yep.

George who, and why should we care about a radio station?

safe diving,

bullshark

Hmmm

I always wondered a couple things about the Sheck death....and though its been
awhile..... I read many a detailed account of Shecks deeper record setting deep
dives (vs horizontal cave penetrations)....

First, if you read his accounts of these dives its obvious his allotment of
"spare air" to deal with problems was darn short....in other words that little
extra in the tank wasnt gonna last very long time wise at say 600 feet on open
circuit scuba...

which reminds me of something Ive never liked about the 1/3rds rule of cave
diving as popularly stated....some extra air at a shallow depth and you can
probably deal with minor "emergencies"...not so at "deep depths"....Ive always
thought that the rule should be more explicity stated:

1/3 of y, where y = total air - x, where x equals the amount of air required to
last z minutes at max depth and z minutes is some decent length of time to deal
with a reasonable emergency...say 15 minutes...YOMV...

Anywho.....looking at his air consumption plans.....I wondered why he didnt
even do something as simple as  a constant mass addition rebreather.....even a
REALLY crappy one dumping a ton of gas into the system probably woulda given
him 10 times more time at depth (not that he woulda wanted to use it unless
hereally  needed to....but it beats RUNNING outa gas......)

Now, if you look at his goals for the final dive.....and then look at how he
did it, it still doesnt make sense....and lets ingore the fact that he was
solo...thats a whole other can of worms....

He had 2 basic goals.....perhaps.....reach the bottom and/or set a new depth
record...now you can question the wisdom of this/these goals but again there is
something I never "liked".....

He pretty much carried all the gas he need for the deep part of descent/ascent
ON him....he had stages tied to the line for the deco up part of the ascent

Now remember, this is a big open cenote with a line just going straight to the
bottom....

If it had been me.... (yeah right), in addition to a buttload of gas ON MY
PERSON.....I woulda had another buttload or 2 of gas/tanks/regs attached to the
main descent line or perhaps another adjacent line just a few horizontal feet
away.....hell....have a tank staged every 50 vertical feet or so....

Maybe it wouldnta helped in this situation.....but beside the cost of doing
this it sure wouldnta hurt anything.....

take care

Blll