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EuroTek
Presenter
Rick Stanton
Cave explorers generally fall into one
or other of two categories; technical divers who dive in flooded
caves but rarely leave the water, and cavers who dive but treat
the flooded section as a barrier to
finding further dry cave. Rick Stanton is a rarity in that he
is at the top of both disciplines.
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| Time and again he has exhibited a knack for pushing
beyond the limits at which others believed the cave to have
ended. Rick, a fire fighter from Coventry, in England, has been
at the forefront of British cave diving for over twenty years.
Initially a dry caver he learnt to dive while at university
in 1979 with the primary intention of exploring caves &
sumps in the British Isles. This has been an ongoing process
right up to the present day. |
Rick Stanton presenting at the Oztek
conference in Sydney in 2007
Since 2000, Rick has been involved in more
technical cave diving using rebreathers, (often two at a time)
for long penetration and depth. He has concentrated on the
long deep siphons of N Europe, mainly in the Lot region of
SW France, but also in the other French,
Spanish and Italian caves where he specialises in combining
caving techniques with long and often deep multiple sump systems,
transporting large amounts of diving equipment through the
dry sections of the cave in the pursuit of exploration. Typical
have been his early dives at the popular site of the Emergence
de Ressel in southern France. Here it was declared by the
previous explorer, the legendary Olivier Isler,that this 2km
long 80m deep sump could never be passed using open-circuit
equipment. Nine years later Stanton made an epic five-hour
inward dive followed by a
six-hour outward dive, all using open-circuit equipment. |
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In the process, he explored hundreds of metres
of dry cave passages to a further sump. This led to a three
year project along with his partner Jason Mallinson involving
dives totaling a distance of over 4000m in five separate sumps
which involved spending two days bivouaked inside the cave.
Lately he has been involved
in deeper cave explorations. In 2007,
prior to his appearance at OZTeK, Rick Stanton joined
an expedition to
explore the Pearse Resurgence cave
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Rick Stanton cave diving
in the 1990's |
system,in New Zealand, during which he established a record-breaking
dive to a depth of 177-metres.
Later that year there was a
long penetration at a depth of 180m in the St Sauveur
in France on a dive of nearly 17 hours duration. Earlier
this
year that was followed by a 220m deep dive in the Goule
de Tannerie.
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Laden with full exploration
rig |
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In 2004 when six British soldiers were trapped in a Mexican cave by
flood water, Rick Stanton was one of two divers flown out by the British
Government to accomplish the rescue. His quiet and confident nature
made him the ideal diver for such a task; persuading one of the cavers
who was scared of water to make a 180m dive out of the cave.
Constantly making and adapting equipment especially for the cave environment,
Rick believed that small, lightweight rebreathers offered a way of
furthering exploration at many sites.He has developed and manufactured
two CCR units, most recently a unique side mount, fully closed circuit
rebreather which has been instrumental in his achieving the British
cave diving depth record of 90m in challenging circumstances at Wookey
Hole, the birth place of UK cave diving. Here he pushed on through
gravel squeezes previously considered to be impassable at depths in
excess of 70m. When Rick says something is impassable you can bet
it probably is!
Eurotek.2010 note:- Rick
Stantons feature presentations at EuroTek.2010 will be on the subject
of recent cave exploration around Europe.
Read a on line interview with Rick Stanton click
here
Rick Stanton was the winner of the 2008 EuroTek Diver
of the Conference award more information>>
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