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EuroTek Presenter
Dr Geraint Ffoulkes-Jones
Geraint first learned to dive in 1986 whilst at the University
of Nottingham, UK. This was a very typical University club set-up
at the time, too many novices, too little equipment, and too
few instructors. A few years and a steep learning curve later
he was running the club as Diving Officer. Organising expeditions
for 24-30 divers in various remote parts of the UK proved to
be great experience for what was to come.
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| During this time Geraint gained BSAC Advanced Diver, Advanced
Instructor, and IANTD Nitrox diver qualifications .During 10
years at Nottingham, Geraint had gained a BEng in Civil Engineering,
a PhD in High Precision GPS, and 4 years o the staff conducting
research into improving the accuracy of real-time GPS Navigation. |
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In 1994 then joined NavStar Ltd, a small UK GPS
manufacturer based in Northampton. The change of location, and
the need for a break from a highly training oriented diving
club, led into wreck diving on deep air and the introduction
of hot Nitrox mixes and O2 for accelerated decompression diving.
By 1995, he had hooked up with the founders of the Starfish
Enterprise group who pioneered UK Tek diving in the early 1990’s.
From then on the evolution to Trimix was inevitable, an he participated
in many Starfish expeditions including: HMSS Affray 98, The
first sub-100m wreck dives in the English Channel (98), HMHS
Britannic 98, HMSS M1 99 and Lusitania 99. Since the late 1990’s
Geraint has developed and evolved the decompression strategies
used by the Starfish Enterprise. |
| Since the late 1990’s Geraint has developed and evolved
the decompression strategies used by the Starfish Enterprise.
After diving the Lusitania with a large Open Circuit configuration,
and seeing Richie Stevenson with a much smaller Inspiration
set-up the way forward was clear. He was one of the first of
the Starfish group to move over to the “dark side”,
and being a true convert has not dived OC since. This brought
a whole new set of logistics to deal with, different decompression
strategies, software, bail-out plans, etc. |
Rebreathers proved to be the ideal tool for both remote and
deep projects including Jutland 2000, Struma 2000, RMS Egypt
2001, discovery of the Flying Enterprise 2001 and Northern Ireland
(01-03).
Based on his wealth of experience, Carl Spenser asked Geraint
to join his Britannic 2003 Expedition filming for National Geographic,
both as an exploration diver and Diving Officer responsible
for all diving logistics and diver safety. This involved preparing
all the procedures and documentation for the dive team, to satisfy
National Geographic’s risk assessors as well as the Greek
Government in order to gain the dive licence. |
Dr Geraint Ffoulkes-Jones
during the 1998 Starfish Enterprise Britannic expedition |
Above; Dr Geraint
Ffoulkes-Jones is interviewed for National Geographic Channel, Greece
2003
This was the first closed circuit expedition to
the Britannic, and involved 8-10 exploration divers conducting
30-45 minute bottom times in excess of 100m, requiring 5-6 hours
of decompression in a busy shipping lane. Geraint is one of
only a handful of divers fortunate enough to have been on two
expeditions to the Britannic.
....................................................Below
right; Geraint Ffoulkes-Jones with silverware recovered from
a deep wreck |
Geraint acts as a beta tester to many of the commonly
used decompression packages. He was instrumental in providing
input on the original VPM, which led to the improved VPM-B and
VPM-B/E models used by many divers today. The HeliAir Top-Off
tables, and the Linear Semi-Closed Bail out Tables for CCR divers,
are some of his other inventions.
Below; Discussing decompression
logistics during Britannic 03 with Carl Spencer
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Geraint is regularly approached to provide
advice to various deep diving projects. Recently he provided
significant input to the decompression strategy used on
the 2007 |
Carpathia Expedition for dives to160m. Professionally Geraint
is a GPS Specialist for ST-NXP Wireless (http://www.stnwireless.com)
developing GPS / A-GPS products for the cellular, handheld &
automotive markets.
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Diving Qualifications
BSAC Advanced (CMAS***) Diver and Instructor
IANTD Open Circuit Nitrox, Tech Nitrox, Trimix and Full Cave
IANTD Rebreather & Trimix Rebreather.
At EuroTek.08 Dr Geraint Ffoulkes-Jones
'Practical Decompression Management & Logistics' more
information >> |
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