Technical diving

Technical diving (also referred to as tec diving or tech diving) is scuba diving that exceeds the agency-specified limits of recreational diving for non-professional purposes. Technical diving may expose the diver to hazards beyond those normally associated with recreational diving, and to a greater risk of serious injury or death. Risk may be reduced by using suitable equipment and procedures, which require appropriate knowledge and skills. The required knowledge and skills are preferably developed through specialised training, adequate practice, and experience. The equipment involves breathing gases other than air or standard nitrox mixtures, and multiple gas sources.^[1]

Most technical diving is done within the limits of training and previous experience, but by its nature, technical diving includes diving which pushes the boundaries of recognised safe practice, and new equipment and procedures are developed and honed by technical divers in the field. Where these divers are sufficiently knowledgeable, skilled, prepared and lucky, they survive and eventually their experience is integrated into the body of recognised practice.^[2]

The popularisation of the term technical diving has been credited to Michael Menduno, who was editor of the (now defunct) diving magazine aquaCorps Journal,^[3] but the concept and term, technical diving, go back at least as far as 1977,^{[note 1]} and divers have been engaging in what is now commonly referred to as technical diving for decades.

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