Baltictech 2017

Marking the tenth anniversary of this popular technical diving event, Jason Brown traveled to Poland's northern Baltic coastline to attend the Baltictech Advanced Diving Conference in Gdynia.

Feature Information

Author:

Jason Brown

Publication Date:

December 2017

Publication:

Scuba Diver UK

Feature catagory:

Industry Events

Event website:

baltictech.com

This feature and all images are copyright © Jason Brown and may not be republished, reproduced or copied in any form without the express written permission of the author. This feature and all images are available to licence.

As large gatherings go, they don’t get much bigger than Baltictech. Held every two years in the port city of Gdynia on Poland’s Baltic coastline, Baltictech 2017 took place late last year over the weekend of the 25 – 26th November. If you’ve ever attended Eurotek here in the UK, you’ll already have a pretty good idea of what Baltictech is all about.

Like it's UK counterpart Eurotek, the event brings together some of the world’s top diving explorers and leading academics to deliver a packed schedule of presentations to an audience of divers from across Europe and beyond. Baltictech and Eurotek conveniently run on alternate years to avoid any unfortunate clashing of dates so every year brings an opportunity to attend one or the other.

Getting to Baltictech is a lot easier than you might imagine. With flights to nearby Gdansk operating from most regional airports, it took no more than two hours from departure to find myself stepping foot on Polish soil. Gdynia is a refreshingly pleasant place to spend a weekend with plenty to offer visiting tourists and, yes, even a ‘plummet’ of technical divers (another potential candidate?). No visit is complete without a stroll along Gdynia’s southern pier which is home to two unique floating museums - the WWII destroyer ORP Błyskawica and the equally impressive tall ship Dar Pomorza.

Decennial tech event...

This latest Baltictech marks ten years since the very first event opened its doors in 2007. A lot has changed since then – whilst the original Baltictech attracted just 170 attendees and 7 speakers, the 2017 event welcomed over 750 attendees to enjoy presentations delivered by a world-class line up of 32 speakers. The venue has changed too – the event is now hosted in the thoroughly modern and spacious conference centre within the Pomeranian Science and Technology Park in Gdynia.

"Not all the talks were in English but the organisers did their best to cater to those not fluent in anything other than the Queen’s English"

Like Eurotek, the talks at Baltictech are divided between three conference rooms – the amphitheatre-like main hall on the ground floor and two smaller conference rooms – halls A and B – on the upper floor. Over the course of the conference weekend, attendees got to choose from a schedule of talks covering a broad range of tech-related subjects from wreck and cave exploration to new technology, environmental issues and, of course, physiology and decompression theory.

Unsurprisingly, not all the talks were in English but the organisers did their best to cater to those not fluent in anything other than the Queen’s English. In the main hall, head sets were provided which attendees could use to ‘tune in’ to a pair of translators who sat patiently at the back of the hall translating each and every word – quite an impressive feat. In the smaller rooms, translators were always on hand to step in when needed.

Simplify everything...

Finnish explorer Sami Pakkarinen opened Baltictech with the first of two talks covering his cave exploration projects in Norway. On the second day, Sami returned to deliver perhaps the most thought-provoking talk of the conference with a discussion of risk management in technical diving.

Drawing upon his own personal experience of dealing with the aftermath of projects that went tragically wrong, Sami gave a very personal and heartfelt analysis of the impact of such risk and how they can be reduced – or at least managed – through a process of simplification. The key message was simple – simplify everything. Simplify the plan, simplify the equipment and simplify the variables.

Always a popular speaker, Canadian Jill Heinerth travelled across the pond to give attendees a fascinating insight into the cutting-edge technologies that are making cave exploration easier and more interactive. Jill gave a number of demonstrations of such technology as augmented reality, virtual reality, 3D imaging and even robotic mapping! Time to retire your knotted line, compass, slate and pencil? If Jill’s talk is anything to go by, it won’t be long...

The British invasion...

Tech explorers from the UK and Ireland were well represented at Baltictech. Irish wreck explorer Barry McGill wowed the audience with a superb talk all about the world-class diving off the coast of Ireland. Judging by the looks of awe from the audience, it’s a fair bet that more than a few Polish divers will be heading to Malin Head in the foreseeable future.

Brit deco guru Mark Powell threw a curve ball to the audience with his talk entitled ‘Why training doesn’t work’ which challenged accepted training practices. Are instructors failing to get the right message across or are students failing to retain important lessons? Either way, this thought-provoking talk gave the audience plenty to think about. Other Brits flying the flag for UK exploration included Leigh Bishop, Kevin Gurr and Phil Short.

Those looking for an academic fix didn’t need to look too far with charismatic diving doc Professor Simon Mitchell delivered two of the keynote talks of the conference. Full of his signature wit and humorous anecdotes, Simon delivered two superb talks – the first all about carbon dioxide and rebreathers and the second covered the often overlooked subject of temperature management and the risk of decompression sickness. Handled by anyone else, you’d expect such science-heavy talks to be dry but Mitchell consistently demonstrates an enviable talent for keeping his audience engaged and entertained.

Home-grown tech talent...

Home-grown Polish tech talent delivered some great talks too. Flamboyant cave explorer Krzysztof Starnawski delivered a inspiring talk revealing the logistics involved in exploring very deep caves below 200m whilst Baltictech organisers Łukasz Piórewicz and Tomasz Stachura kept the audience entertained with a fascinating update on their own diving projects. Full of humour and Tomasz’ superb photography, the pair wrapped up their talk with an open invite to attendees to join them on future projects – where else would you get such an opportunity?

With the Baltic Sea on its doorstep, it’s no surprise that the area appeared prominently in the talks schedule. Polish explorers Piotr Bałazy and Piotr Kukliński offered an unusual twist on the subject matter by discussing the environmental impact of so many shipwrecks – believed to be as many as 100,000 – on the delicate ecosystem of the Baltic Sea.

Meanwhile, renowned shipwreck hunter Immi Wallen presented to packed conference rooms with two talks, both focused on her activities in the Northern Baltic. Always a popular speaker, Immi’s talks were packed with discovery after discovery - all presented using state of the art imaging technology and 3D photogrammetry.

Discover the latest kit...

Of course Baltictech isn’t just about inspiring talks – it’s also a great place to discover some of the coolest new dive kit. Leading the charge was Baltictech organiser and gold sponsor Santi who were proudly showing off their full range of drysuits, thermal and heated undersuits. One new Santi product that caught everyone’s eye was their new Smart dryglove system which could be a bit of a game changer for fans of their suits. What’s really clever about them is just how flexible they are – Santi have developed a very neat seal system that uses flexible rings rather than the bulky, fixed rings that we’ve become accustomed to.

Fans of high performance scooters had plenty to drool over too with both market leader Suex and new kid on the block Seacraft showing off their latest models. Getting off to a great start, Seacraft’s new Future and Ghost models offered some very cool features including a very snazzy integrated full colour LCD which displays the scooter’s speed setting and battery level.

They also previewed a new navigation module which, when coupled with a sensor mounted to the scooter’s body, will allow it to track distance, depth and bearing – just the sort of data you need for cave surveys!

"Ambitious, vibrant and packed with world-class speakers, Baltictech 2017 was the best yet."

Dive computer buyers were spoilt for choice too with Shearwater, Suunto and Ratio Computers showing off their latest models. Both Shearwater and Ratio showed off some interesting adaptations of rebreather technology to open circuit too. Shearwater’s new open circuit variant of their popular NERD 2 ‘near eye remote display’ computer mounts on your primary regulator hose and displays essential dive information on a small circular screen in front of eyes.

Ratio’s new Air Transmitter is an interesting development too. This clever little gadget connects to an HP port on your regulator first stage and uses a trailing lead to control a rebreather-like HUD featuring a single, multi-colour LED. With the HUD mounted on your primary second stage hose, the small LED changes colour to indicate how much gas you have – green means more than 100 bar, orange means 100 bar or less and red means less than 50 bar.

Baltictech delivers...

The organisers of Baltictech promised that this anniversary event was going to be special and they certainly delivered. Ambitious, vibrant and packed with world-class speakers, Baltictech 2017 was the best yet. For UK divers, a visit to Baltictech offers a unique opportunity to rub shoulders with some of the biggest names in dive exploration and research with the additional benefit of a fun weekend in an accessible and welcoming European city.

Baltictech really hits the perfect balance of serious content mixed with serious enjoyment – whatever aspect of technical diving excites you, it’s an event not to be missed. Count me in for Baltictech 2019!

Baltictech 2017

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