The Technical 1 course is the first “full” class in the UTD Technical Diving Program and it is designed to prepare divers for the rigors of Technical diving (decompression). It will familiarize them with the use of different breathing gases (25/25, 21/35 or 18/45), use of a single decompression bottle with the option of two different decompression gas mixtures (either Nitrox 50 or 100% O2) and various approaches to conducting two technical dives in a day.

Upon successful completion of Tech 1 course a diver will become a fully qualified Technical Diver and be able to use standard Helium mixes of 25/25, 21/35, or 18/45 and decompression gases of 50% or 100% oxygen with the option of a stage bottle (if endorsed). The limits for a UTD Technical 1 diver are 160’/48m, one (1) decompression bottle and the use of one (1) stage bottle (if endorsed). Maximum decompression time when using 100% oxygen for deco is limited to one oxygen cycle (15 minutes) and decompression time is limited to 30 minutes if using Nitrox 50 for deco.