ORMOC, Philippines (16 May 2008) — Live from the surface support vessel in Ormoc where Rob LaLumiere will attempt a world-record 250m (820ft) dive to the 'Shimakaze' war wreck, project supervisor Roscoe Thompson of Action Divers reports that the dive has been delayed 24 hours. "There were delays in getting the helium where we wanted it but we've got it sorted out now," Thompson said. "We're good to go tomorrow morning (May 17) at 5am." If the difficult and dangerous Shimakaze dive is successful, LaLumiere will better his own record of 193m (633ft) set on May 29, 2005 on the USS Cooper, which also sank in Ormoc Bay. To safely complete the difficult and extremely dangerous dive, LaLumiere and Thompson have assembled a team of the world's leading technical divers who started arriving in Ormoc last week. Among the diver support team, Simon Birtles, also of Action Divers, emphasized the significance of the dive. "While this is cutting edge stuff on the technical side," Birtles said, "the primary objective of the dive is to honor those who died serving their countries during World War Two." Shimakaze Powered by a monster high-temperature, high-pressure steam engine that generated approximately 80,000 shaft horsepower to each of her two screws, the Shimakaze was Japan's fastest WWII destroyer capable of reaching a speed of over 40 knots. | 
