How deep does the water need to be for DWS

I am headed to Baja later in December and think that there might be some potential for developing some low level deep water soloing. It's not something I've done before, but I would love to give it a try. How deep should the water be in the fall zone to safely deep water solo?

If locals don't know the area, you should snorkel the waters first to check the depth, hidden boulders, etc. I"d think anything over 10 ft.should work,,,hate to think about hitting the bottom if it was like 8 ft or less. Question is: How high would you feel comfy to bail from? Over 30 ft?

Hey, I was just down there a while back and thinking the same thing. The cliffs on the water looked great for some potential routes. About where do you go down?

+1 for the snorkeling around. The standard for pools with springboards is something like 12 feet, and you're probably going to climb higher than you can jump off a board. I have an eight foot deep pool at home which i wouldn't want to solo over. So i would say if less than 10 ft- no go, less than 15 ft- be wary of your height and try to stop yourself from going deep. Deeper than that and you're probably good.

Be safe and have fun!

depends on how far ur gonna fall. I've fallen off 20ft max into 7 maybe 8 ft, aslong as you watch out for rocks ull be fine

Don't have any DWS experience, but I know from cliff/pier jumping that you want at least 12 feet of water over a sandy bottom for a drop 10 to 30 feet. Over rocks, make that 15... don't wanna cut yer bum...

DWS contest that was held this summer at the Olympic Park in Ooootah dropped climbers into either 8-10 feet of water from 40-50 feet high. Several hit bottom not to mention hitting the water hard.

If yer gonna do it make sure ya got some good insurance including long term care. That way you can pay someone to wipe yer butt and put a straw in yer beer.

I used to be on the diving team in high school. We would practice at the nearby university's pool which was 20 feet deep. We regularly dove off the 10m (33ft) platform and never hit the bottom and you go deeper after a dive than a jump. I imagine the deepest we went was maybe 15? I guess it totally depends on how high you're going. 12ft is probably fine for anything under 30 but I'd want more for higher.

"Official Recommendations"

For 10m platform ideal recommendation is 5m.
Keep in mind, depth of water is just one factor - IIRC one of climbing stars got really messed up by the bad landing - cracked vertebrae, and what not.

Of course, it is amusing how little one actually needs -
wikipedia lists two records - 11.2m dive into .3m of water, and 33.5m into 2.4m of water.

Deep enough that you don't hit the bottom... hard...

learning how to efficiently decelerate upon landing is helpful too

To land with no worries, around 15 feet as others have said. With good landing technique and a soft bottom its possible to go much shallower fairly safely. Due to the possibility of falling unexpectedly while DWS and having no control over form or impact erring on the side of caution would be prudent.

Concerning height above the water and the impact with the water:
Up to 30' or so you probably won't get hurt seriously, some nice bruises, maybe possible to bruise a rib and definitely could knock yourself out with the right blow to your head (an important reason to go with a partner!).

Around 50-60 feet it gets pretty serious, broken bones, dislocated joints and torn ligaments are a real possibility. Hitting your head or face is very bad.

Above 80-90 it starts getting lethal. Land right or you WILL be hurt, probably badly.

With cliff jumping it often comes down to technique, allowing much smaller margins. I've bruised my feet on a 60 footer into 12' of water (still was a noob) and done a fifty footer into 7' of water perfectly fine (we had swam the landing area before hand and our technique was dialed). I've also come super close to tearing my ACL when I hit the water with my leg slightly bent on an 80 footer. Not respecting high cliffs WILL get you hurt if you're stupid enough to jump/fall off (like me).

I'd practice some cliff jumping and landings before you get too high so you feel more comfortable in the air and landing. Having a sense of where you are in the air in relation to the water and what your body is doing goes a long way towards avoiding painful landings.

Remember to ALWAYS swim your landing zone!! Even if you've been there before, bottoms and depths change all the time!

learn this technique in the video and all you need is a foot of water.

youtube.com/watch?v=xPWQNKJ…

go just enough to prevent the tanner hall effect

The quality of the landing area is most important for me. I've done 40 foot jumps into 7 feet of water, but that was a river with nice, smooth, round rocks. Sure, your feet will touch the ground, but they touch the ground when you jump off a chair, too, and that doesn't make it dangerous(my feet are touching the ground RIGHT NOW!) A sharp landing changes everything, though. Sea cliff bases are usually irregular, in my experience, and rocks in the water are covered with sharp creatures.
Also, be aware of the tide; a landing zone can go from perfect to wheelchair trap in less than an hour.

Christopher Powers wrote:Hey, I was just down there a while back and thinking the same thing. The cliffs on the water looked great for some potential routes. About where do you go down?

I'm going to Agua Verde near Loreto.

I actually got the chance to be the human test dummy for the Psicobloc DWS competition they held in Salt Lake City. We elevated a crane to 50 ft (the height of the top of the wall) and then jumped out of the crane into 12ft (it may have just been 10 ft) of water. My feet just barely touched the bottom at the height of a 50ft fall. Several other people tested the jump and with similar results, either lightly touching the bottom or not touching at all.

That being said, the amount of air in the water makes a big difference. The water that we were jumping into was perfectly flat, but water that is churned up by waves or bubbles and things is not as resistant and you fall through it faster, which may be why there is some discrepancy in the answers here.

Final note: For what its worth, even a controlled jump from 50ft was very uncomfortable. One of the testers actually chipped his teeth from the force of the impact.

scienceguy288 wrote: I'm going to Agua Verde near Loreto.

Very cool! I go to Coyote Bay

Brandon Bishoff wrote:I actually got the chance to be the human test dummy for the Psicobloc DWS competition they held in Salt Lake City. We elevated a crane to 50 ft (the height of the top of the wall) and then jumped out of the crane into 12ft (it may have just been 10 ft) of water. My feet just barely touched the bottom at the height of a 50ft fall. Several other people tested the jump and with similar results, either lightly touching the bottom or not touching at all. That being said, the amount of air in the water makes a big difference. The water that we were jumping into was perfectly flat, but water that is churned up by waves or bubbles and things is not as resistant and you fall through it faster, which may be why there is some discrepancy in the answers here. Final note: For what its worth, even a controlled jump from 50ft was very uncomfortable. One of the testers actually chipped his teeth from the force of the impact.

I fell from the middle of the roof at Psicobloc during the open qualifiers and hit the bottom pretty hard. Nothing horrible, but I do know at least one other person I talked to hurt their ankle hitting the bottom when jumping off the top.