UTD Equipment Configuration

UTD Equipment Section
The UTD International equipment philosophy is based on what is known today as Hogarthian/DIR/NTEC. It had its genesis in the Florida cave diving community throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was during this period that early cave diving pioneers and explorers such as Sheck Exley. Bill Main and Parker Turner, along with others, laid the underpinnings of the UTD equipment philosophy. As cave diving became more popular over the years there were an increasing number of accidents and fatalities. Exley was the first to study the root causes of these accidents. In his landmark book Blue Print for Survival, among other factors, training and equipment were cited as contributing to the cause of many of the accidents that occurred in a cave environment. Both Exley and Main began to understand the necessity to formulate a simplistic approach to equipment configurations when cave diving. The apocryphal story has it that originally this style was named Hogarthian after Bill Hogarth Main. The Hogarthian method referred to the equipment configuration and later became the basis for the DIR Configuration.

UTD Equipment Configuration
UTD's equipment configuration is rooted in the Hogarthian/DIR/NTEC philosophy yet emphasizes

• Unification within the team.
• Consistent within a variety of environments
• Less is more
• Only take what you need
• Simplicity
• Streamline
• Most importantly - "Start with the end in mind" and you will only have to build your system once.

Equipment Configuration

Your base UTD equipment configuration should always be simply and consistent yet allow for the additional items as necessary. The addition or subtraction of certain items for a specific dive should not interfere the dive, team, or existing configuration. Conducting a team dive with a unified configuration prevents issues especially when it comes to understanding your team configuration