It may be fairly old hat, but the wacky sport of Extreme Ironing continues to attract divers as a recent, record-breaking dive has shown.

Diving off Dahab in Egypt, Briton John Rudolf “put the finishing touches to a t-shirt” at a depth of 129m.

Rudolf, an IT specialist from Teignmouth in Devon, was backed by a team of support divers. They assisted his long decompression and shared videoing and photographic roles essential if you are to enter the Extreme Ironing Bureau’s hall of fame.

The movement describes its activity as a “danger sport that combines the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt”.

For some years its website has featured adventure sports people happy to drag an iron, board and some crumpled clothing to the oddest places on the planet, from seabed to mountain top.

In 2003, Channel 4 was so impressed that it screened Extreme Ironing’s “world championships”. Soon afterwards, Diver magazine columnist Louise Trewavas decided to show that some technical divers do care about their appearance by taking her own ironing to a depth of 100m - like Rudolf, off Dahab.

Trewavas’s dive set a wet ironing benchmark, and Rudolf’s is now officially the deepest-ever dive by an ironist.

After her dive, Trewavas said: “Side-mounting an ironing board isn't as hard as it sounds. Deploying it under water is another matter.”

And Rudolf had his own warning for would-be deepwater ironists. “At depth your tarabeeze (ironing board), which is MDF (compacted chipboard), will have all the air squeezed out by the pressure. This renders you somewhat heavier than expected.” He admitted to having “alighted” on the seabed “like a sack of spuds”.

Click on the Extreme Ironing Bureau website link below to view Rudolf’s full account, complete with pictures and video clip.

Related links
Extreme Ironing Bureau
Ironing at 100m - Louise Trewavas

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