My Limits -185 Mt No Limits - Italian Record

My Limits -185 Mt.

28 Agosto 2017

Location: Freediving World - Sharm El Shiekh

Andrea Zuccari stabilisce il nuovo Record Italiano di Apnea in assetto Variabile No Limits scendendo a -185 mt.

On 26th July 2014 Andrea Zuccari set the New Italian Record of No Limits reaching a depth of a -175 mt.
3 years later, during the week from 21 to 28 July, Andrea was supposed to try a No Limits dive to -200 mt. This was the plan, and during the last two months of training, Andrea reached -185 mt. three times. Despite everybody thinking that the limit of this discipline should be the equalisation, Andrea found another problem: the narcosis.
Nitrogen narcosis is a very well known problem for scuba divers and it can be experienced in depths of over 30 meters. However in Freediving, nitrogen narcosis usually shows up much deeper, and today there are very few freedivers that have reached those depths. The narcosis can be compared to the effects that you may feel from alcohol, and can effect your behaviour underwater.
During many of his freedives this year Andrea felt narcosis stronger and more often than in the past, so he decided that trying to exceed those depths would have been too dangerous, similar to driving a car at 200 km per hour completely drunk.
Yesterday on 28/08/17, even if a bit disappointed, Andrea decided to stop trying to reach the 200 meters depth and to formalise the New No Limits Italian Record at -185 mt.
In the past the No Limits Records were sanctioned by AIDA, but some years ago this association decided to stop the sanctioning of records in this discipline. So if the three dives at -185 were done during training, with witnesses and video cameras, they can be considered a Record!
During the last two months Andrea reached this depth three times. The first time was at the beginning of July, and during that dive it was not only narcosis that was the problem, but also the equalisation was at the limit of his capacities. As a result he decided to take a step back, to dive shallower for a while, and try to improve the equalisation protocol by moving the last Mounthfill charge, trying to reach that depth in better condition. At the end of July he was ready to repeat the same depth of 185 meters, and this time the equalisation was perfect. It was so good, that he thought he could go for the 200 meter Record. Unfortunately the narcosis proved to be still too strong to go deeper!
During the last year Andrea with some specific training methods improved his Vital Capacity from 6 Lt. to 7,5 Lt. and his C.V with packing from 8 Lt. to 10 Lt.
As narcosis is also known as “Nitrogen narcosis” Andrea thought that the reason of this problem may be due to the two litres of extra air he had in his lungs.
Again he stepped back and started to train to -165 meters with no packing at all (1,5 litres of air less than he was using in the last dives), but found their were no big improvements with the problem of narcosis.
Andrea decided to continue to train, with the hope that the narcosis would disappear or decrease with training as he became more used to the depth.
Last week between 21st - 28 August was the period planned for the record attempt. During this time he made a third dive to -185 meters hoping to be ready to go further, but despite the dive going very well, the narcosis problem was still too strong. Andrea has made the decision this is his limit at the moment… My Limit -185Mt.