Kevin Gurr
Cave and Wreck Explorer
England - United Kingdom
This interest spread to rebreathers when he was commissioned to design a control system. The first chamber test dive (and his first rebreather dive) was to 200m! It failed!
Kevin then began to use his new-found knowledge of mixed gas to experiment with decompression calculations even further and to do deeper and longer dives. This resulted in the world’s first Nitrox computer in 1991.
At the time the internet was growing rapidly and through the first Tech Diving forum he met Richard Pyle, who was to become a good friend. Kevin attended the first Nitrox/Tech Diver workshop in Houston and as a result adopted and established IANTD in the UK. He became the first technical diving instructor outside the USA.
Through his association with Pyle he met Dr. Bill Stone and after a week of assembling muddy rebreather parts in Bill’s garage, Richard and Kevin had built “their children” - their first fully functioning MK4 rebreathers. Training ensued and the two of them went on to assist Bill with the development of the MK5.
In 1997, Kevin led the first post-Cousteau expedition to the Britannic. His team spent 3 weeks on the site. This deep water project along with several others, such as the Lusitania expedition that same year, led to the development of the VR3 mixed gas dive computer (www.vr3.co.uk).
In 1998 Kevin received the “Diver of the Year” award in the UK for services to the diving industry as well as for his leadership of the Britannic project. He is still the last recipient of this award. His diving product designs have won several innovation awards.
Kevin has dived all over the world and been involved in many exciting projects. He worked with NOAA on the Monitor project off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, during the turret recovery as a videographer and has worked on several other wreck investigation programs.
His expertise in marine electronics and surveying has led to several diving projects in search of Spanish Galleons throughout the Pacific, Central America and the Florida Keys. Over the course of several seasons he worked with noted diver Billy Deans in Guam, where for the first time they used MK15.5's on a regular basis over a range of depths down to 330 FSW, logging hundreds of closed-circuit hours. This project ultimately led to the development of the Ouroboros Rebreather (www.ccrb.co.uk).
Kevin is an active dry caver and cave diving instructor and teaches technical diving at all levels. He has written or co-written many of today’s standard teaching materials. As a diving engineer he has been instrumental in assisting with the designs of many of the world’s technical diving products for both his own and other companies.
Delta P Technology Ltd and Closed Circuit Research Ltd
Unit 12, Blackhill Road West
Holton Heath Industrial Estate
Poole, Dorset
BH16 6LE
Tel: +44 1202-624478
Fax: +44 1202-625308
email. deltapmg@aol.com
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