Talk:Sponge diving

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Suspected copyvio

There is a very close paraphrase of the copyrighted text of:

Sandra Hendrikse and André Merks (12 May 2009). "Diving the Skafandro suit". Diving Heritage. Retrieved 2009-10-16.

in these sections:

Background: It is unknown when exactly the sponge became an article of use. In Ancient Greek writings, Plato and Homerus mentioned the sponge as an object used for bathing.
History: The crew went out into the Mediterranean Sea in a small boat. They used a cylindrical object with a glass bottom to search the ocean floor for sponges. As soon as one was found, a diver went overboard to get it. Free diving, he was usually naked and carried a 15 kilogram skandalopetra with him to take him down to the bottom quickly. The diver then cut the sponge loose from the bottom and put a special net around it. Depth and bottom time depended on the divers lung capacity. They usually went down to about about 30 m (98 feet) for 3 to 5 minutes.

Unless anyone feels that the text has been changed sufficiently, I'm inclined to remove those sentences soon. Any dissenting views? --RexxS (talk) 19:48, 16 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As a freediver I'm also suspicious of the unsupported claim on that website – widely repeated – that the divers regularly stayed down for 3 to 5 minutes. I suspect that they usually stayed down for 2 to 3 minutes. 5 minutes is only really possible on a 'static' freedive when the diver is doing absolutely no physical activity. Modern record-breaking depths are usually achieved in dives of around 4 minutes – and these are truly exceptional. So I wouldn't repeat the material on factual grounds.

The truth is that when someone who doesn't freedive sees someone else dive, either from a boat or on film, it seems as if they're down for ages; but a stopwatch (or the timings of a Youtube video) will reveal that such dives rarely exceed 2 minutes. --Wally Tharg (talk) 10:07, 29 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree with Wally Tharg. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 22:10, 30 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]