Nina Preisner breaks world record in 159.8m (525ft) dive to wrecked cargo ship

June 17th, 2007 by admin in Stories and NEWS

A Briton who gave up her job as a lawyer to pursue a career in watersports has claimed the record for the world’s deepest dive on to a wreck by a woman.

Nina Preisner, 37, took just four minutes to reach a depth of 159.8m (525ft) but her ascent was an agonisingly slow three hours as she had to make frequent stops to decompress.

Her dive to the Jolanda, a Cypriot cargo vessel that sank in the Red Sea, broke the previous record by more than 15m (50ft).

Miss Preisner, who was a solicitor in Bristol before becoming a full-time diving instructor, has completed more than 3,000 descents. She is now planning an attempt on the world deep diving record.

Her dive required a battery of heavy equipment including six tanks containing various mixtures of gases. The mixtures had to be breathed in strict rotation because at the wrong depth they can be toxic.

The 1,907-ton Jolanda capsized in a storm in 1986, spilling her cargo of toilets, sinks, baths, lino and the captain’s BMW car. The sunken vessel was found in 2005 by a pair of British divers, Leigh Cunningham and Mark Andrews, who promptly lost its location.

Miss Preisner realised that her attempt to find the wreck could be a world record only when she read a diving magazine. She planned the venture for months and was required to undergo a lengthy process of being granted permission and contracts from local authorities.

Miss Preisner had a team of 15 support staff at the surface, an emergency medical unit on stand-by onshore and eight other staff at various depths in the water with emergency air supplies. The huge pressures that she endured compressed her 5mm wetsuit to less than half a millimetre thick.

By the time that Miss Preisner reached the wreck she was breathing a mixture of 7 per cent oxygen, 77 per cent helium and 16 per cent nitrogen and she was able to spend only a few minutes on the Jolanda before having to begin her ascent.

“It’s such an amazing world down there,” she said. “People who haven’t done it can’t appreciate it.

“It’s like going to a different planet. It makes me a bit sad to think that there are people who live their whole lives and never see this amazing world.”

The previous wreck-diving record was held by Adina Ochert, who dived to 144 metres on the 19th-century warship HMS Victoria off the Lebanese coast.

The record for the deepest ocean dive by a woman is 221m (725ft) but encouraged by her recent success Miss Preisner now intends to break that too. “I’m not going to stop here. I’ve got the next record in my sights now.”

Source: timesonline.co.uk