PDE & Thermulation - new sponsor for 2013!

World Record Diving Malta is proud to announce Premier Diving Equipment as our latest sponsor for the upcoming Warm Water 60 Hour Dive Challenge in partnership with Thermulation's heated vest.

About Thermalution

Petatech ® International Co. Ltd was established in 1996 specialising in the manufacture of a non-metallic heating element: ThermalTek®. Being pioneers in this field Petatech have successfully developed portable power heating products for domestic, medical, health care, underwater and outdoor purposes. Thermalution® is their latest innovation to take the water sports market by storm.

About Premier Diving Equipment 

PDE was launched at the London International Dive Show in March 2011 bringing some must have products for Scuba Diving and water sports to the UK market. Thermalution® has fast become their most sought after product, turning any wet or dry suit into a heated one and bringing warmth to your underwater adventures!

PDE & Thermulation® will be providing the World Record Diving Malta Team some awesome new toys to play with, namely the new wireless Heated Under-suit for Wet-suits and for Dry-suits. The Thermulation® Power Heated Undersuit is the world’s first of its kind. The philosophy behind the brand is to bring warmth with style: “Fashion + Function = Thermulation®”.

These under-suits are slim, durable and weigh a mere 700g allowing you to have maximum flexibility and agility underwater whilst being lightweight at the same time. They are powered by two Lithium Polymer 7.4V batteries. These are the same batteries found in your mobile phone or mp3 player: no danger of radiation, electric shock or explosion. They are compact and lightweight; a set consists of two 130g batteries. The battery pockets are positioned outside of the under-suit at the sides of the chest, under the arms, offering maximum freedom of movement.

Characteristics of Heated Under-suit for Dry-suits

• Suitable for wearing beneath wetsuits and dry-suits up to depths of 100 metres.
• The wireless temperature micro-controller wristband has an on/off switch   with three temperature settings allowing you to adjust the temperature of the thermal layer even underwater!!
• Built in microchip within controller providing extra stability for temperature control.
• Non- metallic heating panel positioned on the back to warm up your core area.
• Heat lasting 180- 240 minutes (depending on temperature setting).

Characteristics of Heated Under-suit for Wetsuits

• Suitable for wearing beneath wetsuits up to depths of  70 metres
• The temperature micro-controller with on/off switch has three temperature settings and light indication. The controller is on a stretchable cable that feeds though the neck/hood of your wetsuit so temperature can be controlled under water.
•  Built in microchip within controller providing extra stability for temperature control.
•  Non- metallic heating panel positioned on the back to warm up your core area.
•  Heat lasting 100-140 minutes (depending on temperature setting).

PDE will also be providing the team with Innobeam torches. Innobeam specialise in the advanced design and manufacture of portable lights and torches, meeting the demand of a wide range of consumers including divers. These torches encompass multiple functionality; with high, medium, low and blinking settings. Lasting up to 20 hours these torches will be extremely useful to the WRDMalta team bearing in mind that we plan to remain below the surface for a total of 60 hours.  

Lastly, PDE will be supplying the team with Gearmarker – extremely useful and efficient for us, having a team of around 25 divers getting in and out of the water during the event. Gearmarker is a 3d paint that is flexible once dry. It is ideal for marking and personalising items such as wetsuits, weight belts, bags, etc. It may also be used for slick, smooth surfaces like on masks and fins. Gearmarker is non-toxic, completely waterproof and stands proud on any surface. What a fantastic innovation!

“Having met Sean and some of the Malta World Record Diving Team at the London International Dive show in March 2013, it soon became clear that Thermalution would be the perfect product to support Sean and his team of support divers through their next challenge – 60hrs continuous diving! We’re delighted to be supporting Sean and his team. Good luck to all the team from all of us here at PDE!”

For more information kindly visit: visit www.pdeuk.com / www.thermalution.com or contact Ms Rachael Bell on rachael.bell@pguk.net

What's Next?

Over the past few years WRDMalta has organized a series of world record breaking dive events based on saturation and endurance diving for which we have received record achievements and recognition both by Guinness World Records as well as by the Malta National Records Office. However, the WRDMalta team strongly believes that “you are only as good as your last game”, therefore we always strive to improve our achievements and exceed further.

For this reason we are not only planning to break our own personal record of 36 hours underwater without breaking the surface, but we are also aiming at breaking the Guinness World Record for the longest warm water dive (48 hours 8 minutes & 17 seconds), whilst pushing the benchmark further to a 60 hour total dive time.  This event will take place on the 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th October in collaboration with Starfish Diving School, the Corinthia  Hotel - St.George's Bay and The Marina Hotel - Corinthia Beach Resort.

Throughout the record event, our lead diver Sean McGahern will be submerged for a duration of 60 hours during which he will be accompanied by the World Record Diving Malta safety diver team as well as by a number of divers from the St. John’s Rescue team. The divers will spend a large amount of their time underwater doing a clean-up of the sea bed (collecting any debris which has not yet developed into a home to any marine life) as a means of promoting environmental awareness. We would like to wish a big welcome to all the new divers who have joined the team for the upcoming event - it's great to have you on board!

Apart from team meetings and training which will begin shortly, we are currently super busy working very closely with our above mentioned sponsors as well as Apeks, Aqualung, Whites Drysuits and M&A Diving Supplies (who have constantly shown extreme support during our past events) in order to organize this event and bring something innovative, new and exciting to the table for Malta. More details to follow in the not so distant future!!

Finally, World Record Diving Malta is ecstatic to announce our new sponsor for 2013: PREMIER DIVING EQUIPMENT in partnership with THERMALUTION. Welcome on board from all of us at World Record Diving Malta!!

A New Game to Play!

One of the main values at World Record Diving Malta is Innovation - that is, striving to develop new ideas in bringing the diving community together for fun events and team building activities. Bearing in mind that our scuba diving events are generally organized for divers with a minimum Advanced Open Water certification requirement, we agreed that it would be interesting to organize something different for even entry level divers and beginners as well as family and friends to be able to participate in. So what did we come up with? The Scuba Pub Quiz!!

We will be organizing a number of these over the coming months and anyone is welcome to join in and play, even non- divers should you wish to. As many of you know, World Record Diving Malta is not only about physical challenges in relation to scuba diving, but we also strive to promote a charitable goal. For this reason, all proceeds received from our pub quizzes will be donated to various local charities around the Maltese islands.

The first Scuba Pub Quiz will take place on Friday 19^th July at the one and only, the place to be, Del Piero’s Bar in Birzebbugia. What better way of bringing the local and foreign divers together than a scuba topic quiz + lots and lots of beer? (as long as none of you are planning a night dive afterwards!) Free snacks and nibbles will be presented during the event as well as GREAT OFFERS on drinks and finally WICKED PRIZES! 

The entry fee for this event is 5€ per person (tables of 4), all proceeds of which will be donated to the St. Patrick’s Residential Children Services. Places are limited so should you be interested in taking part in our quiz then please feel free to contact Mikaela on worldrecorddivingmalta@gmail.com or call on +356 79093456. 

Treasure Island - A Blast of a Day!

On the 16^th of June, teams of local and foreign divers once again set out on a journey around some of Malta’s most popular dive sites and faced a number of obstacles and challenges whilst in search of several buried treasures.

The competing teams were given a booklet from which they had to solve a number of riddles in order to arrive at various check points around the islands. Teams were spotted searching for clues wearing full scuba kit in some of Malta’s best tourist attractions such as Popeye Village, the Malta Bird Park, the Upper Barakka Gardens and the Marsascala Family Park and admittedly this was quite fun to watch. Once the clues and riddles hidden at the various check points were found and solved, team members then had to journey across the island to dive sites such as Zonqor Point, Scorpion Cave and HMS Maori in order to retrieve the hidden treasures.

Along the way the participating members also had to participate in a photo challenge by providing a number of photographs performing stunts underwater. Teams were seen swimming along in pyjamas, eating traditional Maltese pastizzi underwater, playing musical instruments underwater and having a picnic underwater. Moreover, teams were also spotted posing in water features, on the traditional Maltese Karozzin as well as on a Luzzu.

This was the second edition of Treasure Island and once again the team received excellent feedback from the participating teams. “What a great way to bring the diving community together - highly recommended to any divers” and “we can’t wait to see what's in store for the next one” were a few of the comments received at the end of the day. The Take the Plunge edition was definitely bigger and tougher than the last but the teams showed extreme effort and great enthusiasm throughout the entire event especially when dancing the ‘Gangnam Style’ with Olive Oil at Popeye Village (Video at the bottom of page).

World Record Diving Malta would like to say a huge thanks to all those who participated in our event and thank you for helping us with our donation to the local voluntary organization the St.John’s Rescue Corps. A huge well done goes out to Team DiveMed, the twice-in-a-row winning team for Treasure Island. Congrats also to the teams who placed second and third – excellent team spirit everyone – you were great!!!

Finally a huge shout goes out to our sponsors for providing such delightful prizes for the winning teams, namely: The Corinthia St. George Hotel, M&A Diving Supplies Ltd and Henry J Beans Bar & Grill. 

Treasure Island will once again take place towards the end of the dive season- stay tuned if you wish to participate in the next edition for 2013. For more information on our upcoming treasure hunt events kindly visit www.facebook.com/WRDMaltaTreasureIsland.