diving in the 70s and 80s

[Bantam]

Originally Posted by ratcliffe

Are you joining the Historical Diving Society then Bantam ?

Aren't they too new for the HDS?

I thought it was 6-bolts they used?

[Allan Carr]

Originally Posted by jptaylor9

Didn't need them as you could never get bent on a 60 cu. ft. cylinder of air... Happy days

I have one dived logged to 135 ft (41M) of 24mins which included 6 ins deco on a 50cuft cylinder - that's equivalent to about a 6l cylinder at 232bar. Must have been crazy!

[The_blue]

More pictures needed!!

[ratcliffe]

Originally Posted by Bantam

Aren't they too new for the HDS?

I thought it was 6-bolts they used?

Well you know how it is, but there are guys diving the 50/60/70's gear too - you could be support diver to us buggers in the 6 bolt

[Bantam]

Originally Posted by ratcliffe

Well you know how it is, but there are guys diving the 50/60/70's gear too - you could be support diver to us buggers in the 6 bolt

Sounds like fun to me!

[Hickdive]

Originally Posted by Bantam

I thought it was 6-bolts they used?

Six? I get by with two...








...through my neck mind you

[ridge]

Diving in the 1970s/early mid 1980s


Disclaimer
For legal reasons and not for any dishonesty on my part, I must insist that this document is only read or distributed in its entirety expressly with this disclaimer.

All input to this document is made without prejudice, by suggestion, as alleged, and is non attributable, e&oe.

Also in some 36 years I may have forgotten the precise litre rating of a bottle etc, and it really doesn’t matter that much - so please feel free to offer/post corrections.

It is a sort of work in progress, so if any one else wants to add anecdotal or technical info…..

Otherwise a typical Franco & Germophobic rant

Masks Snorkels

Nemrod (black rubber screw stainless frame toughened glass 3 lens purge valves straps perish break)
Nemrod did a telescopic fold away snorkel (– still got mine and use it now and then) Scubapro Shotgun was the first valve draining snorkel (– still got mine and use it now and then)


Wetsuits –
were expensive lots of people made their own on kitchen tables glueing and taping the seams with the resultant splitting disasters as they tried to force their way into them as zips were minimal as well.

We really did wear jean cut offs sweat shirts and arran sweaters, and suffer skull freeze.

Made Suits were low stitching technology and certainly didn’t stretch like they do now.

The Poseidon Unisuit made an appearance but dry suits were pretty much limited to ex military style Avon rubber dry bags if you were very very rich or lucky.


Regulators
Spirotechnique
Technisub Inject 40L – adjustable 1st and 2nd stage early venturi effect
US Divers
Nemrod SnarkII downstream regulator
Mistral (Twin Hose James Bond film type)

Scubapro Pilot (vibrated when down to last 50 or 30 ats)
(No octopus until mid late1980s)



Tanks
Generally no contents gauges especially on the continent
Twin Sets
J valves (– waited until you ran out of main supply of air by the breathing being cut off then pulle a wire hoop at the bottom of the bottle by hand, which was connected to the valve on the top of the tank which gave a “reserve” of 30 ats – this is alos why the original hand signal of clenched fist to show on reserve was not five digits for 50 bar but to mimic the clenched grip to pull the reserve on the J valve 30ats)
Luxfer Aluminimum74 Cu ft
Spirotechnique Steels 82 cu ft (at one time did a famous little one size of a calor gas bottle supposed to be easier to carry iand store in a car boot or on a boat)
All steels were not lightweight like today
US Divers Quick Cam Back Pack was a luxury most just had clamp brackets fixed to tank with straps

Fins
Jetfins (black rubber most favourite were the forcefins of their day and still have a following)
Mares Power Planna (were the indestructible my 12 year old son still has mine from 1983, and is diving with them, the straps which in those days went through unforgiving tight metal buckles lasted without perishing until 2006!)
Nemrod


Buoyancy Control
None – (People drowned..often)
Fenzy Lifejacket
Buddy Lifejacet Horsecollars (Were used in Emergency Ascent drills and as alternate air supply)
Early Scubapro Jacket BDs

Contents Gauges
In Britain and America contents gauges came in fairly widely but on the continent especially in the Med were still almost frowned upon.

MDE( I had an early midland diving equipment one that still works with 30 ats reserve marking good stuff)

Some unscrupulous English dive shop (that is still trading but I have never used since), were selling unbranded contents gauges with highly dangerous fragile swivel connectors between gauge and hose, mine came off, thankfully when I was not diving, and even when they were later presented with the evidence they never accepted that this was a grave design\construction failure and that they had sold, presumably tens, if not hundreds, of these into the marketplace.
As I recall they were not going to refund the money, but would let me have another one as a replacement!.

Thankfully I have never seen anything like this from the other British dive shops I have dealt with before and since, and have always found those others to be very responsible.

Knives
Wenoka
Nemrod
Spirotechnique
(Proper big knives that saved lives…often)

Computers
Early computers\depth timers Scubapro mechanical!

Watches
Seiko Autowind Divers Watch
Rolex Submariner
Omega

Divebags
I still also have one of the famous Yellow Spirotechnique bag, (still comes abroad diving 3 times a year, is used 3 or 4 times a week as a gym bag from 1978 now 30 years old and only just wearing out on the corners, original zip still working end pocket used for a first aid kit {how many times abroad on a boat do you hear the pathetic "Oh you've got a first aid kit thats a good idea"} )


The Mediterranean
The Med that I saw in the 1970s and early\mid 1980s was a horror story. Although I sadly didn’t do Greece Malta(until later) and Italy and the rest, I did do France Spain and Majorca which were the main within reach destinations for Brits, and also Cyprus.

The poor administration and enforcement of the authority of national governments and diving organisations meant that most forms of tourist diving were a very dangerous free for all.

Many accidents and deaths resulted year on year .


The French
Many (but not all) of the French sport divers I dived with, despite all of the heritage of Jacques Cousteau and some of the leading edge technical commercial diving of the famous Comex organization, were generally appalling about staying up to date and practising safe diving in a consistent disciplined manner. Rather too macho and culturally a contradiction – a nuclear power technology still mixed up with horse drawn ploughs in the fields

One Saturday morning, as apparently every Saturday morning, in a diveboat out of a famous French Riviera harbour, a father and his two sons aged 9 or 10 years old show up, with yellow spirotechnique steel bottles (and the bags I think!) almost bigger than they were, no contents gauge, no octopus(ii), no j valves, no bcd\lifejacket, no wetsuit, but off down to 40+m (que sera)

It appeared that the group relied on whoever run out of air to buddy breathe and then decide it was time to surface, albeit with an early version of the 5m safety stop.

Pastis served between dives was normal

There was another operation along the coast to the west that brandished a BSAC badge and was run by a French guy, whom were it not for his monopoly on boat access to certain wrecks would probably have been rejected by the local and tourist diving community long before.

His forte was to grab the money off the divers right away, but fill the bottles once the boat was underway with the engine exhaust percolating into the compressor inlet.

All the ‘staff’ (including some BSAC groupies presumably with preferential diving for the use of the BSAC badge) it appeared had filled their bottles earlier in port without the boat engine running!

I love the smell of diesel exhaust in the morning (but I preferred not to taste it in my air down to 30m, oh and a bottle with more than 75bar would have been nice!)

Having said this some of the French were amazing divers. A wealthy French guy who saved my life certainly has my vote. This was when I had a badly leaking mask and returned to the boat to get a spare then got swept away in a strong Mistral current (I was ‘sans’ lifejacket/bcd and luckily he was the only French guy I knew with any buoyancy [in his unisuit] and he happened to see me and swim up underneath and inflate his suit….)



The Germans

At this time Germans could go and buy kit with no training or certification then go diving and die all in the same afternoon – a famous photo in the british Diver magazine in the late 1970s showed two such German divers being recovered months\years after being lost, as grizzly skeletons still in all the new dive gear notably with the price tag still hanging off !

In Majorca a German guy in another dive party next to us panicked and shot to the surface from around 15 to 20m, he got picked up by boat and word had it that he later died.

Makes you wonder if he was like some of the Russians you see in the red sea with loads of money generally no\little training or certification that simply must bully the dive concessions to go diving at any cost.

As late as the 1990s I used to see Germans down at 50-60m on air open and drink a bottle of Erdinger beer to show off.

The Germans who did take their Tauchen seriously however, were as you might expect generally very thoroughly trained and disciplined, (sense of humour optional) good divers, but in those days they seemed to be in the minority.

A young german girl university student studying to be a diving instructor unfortunately personified that element of blind German discipline without initiative that I found very alarming.

I had been called into an argument she was having with her English trainees regarding the use of an octopus (this was still quite new then but there was no excuse for what she said) Well she said categorically that if you were out of air you should swim over to your buddy and without any warning grab his primary air source out of his mouth as this was the way she had been taught and that was it.

It was, she said, then up to the buddy to breathe off his secondary (assuming he hadn't already reached for his dive knife......).

She had passed this jewel on to at least three large groups of novice divers by this time. Even when she was corrected and had it explained objectively point by point you could see her training was irrevocably programmed in "Vorsprung der F**kedup".


The Swiss

Well you probably guessed it the few Swiss guys I saw diving were boring.... but actually …great.

Mainly because some of them dived with the military in the swiss lakes and boy did they know their stuff and used to have the best and most expensive kit - all body wetsuits, watches early divetimer/computers contents gauges bcd/lifejackets, torches safety beacons tables slates etc etc .

Some even brought their own ribs down to the med by trailer, and the ones I met didn’t leave their sense of humour or their beer drinking heads behind either .


The Brits

A lot of Royal Navy skills, and worthwhile civilian diving skills cascaded down to sport divers through the BSAC “diving club” set up. The Brits were mostly very well trained and disciplined.

The discipline of the supply and support network generally meant un certified divers didn’t get sold kit in diveshops or have bottles filled in the UK.

I am sure that there were bad UK boats, and bad UK divers but I think these were very much the exception rather than the rule.

I think its fair to say that the BSAC standards were a world class starting point in sport diving even if they sadly were over kill on certain aspects and became outmoded by our ‘friends’ at PADI.

The main sticking point was BSAC could not move flexibly with the needs of new novice UK divers. Especially the growing numbers who went overseas on holiday and in a week or two had rightly or wrongly already been in the sea on real OC Scuba dives.

Back they came in their droves from holiday, down to their local BSAC club to get certified, only to find that they had to do 20 something snorkel lectures before they could even do scuba training in the pool, needless to say many also left in their droves the same night or after a few weeks.

The core diehard BSAC Dive Club trained sport diver at this time, was, none the less, far better trained and inherently far far safer and more capable than most (not all) of his Med Sea continental cousins and his American counterparts. PADI couldn’t compare at the time and many argue they still can’t today.

And here's the inevitable cliche - The arduous diving conditions of UK coastal and inland waters further enhanced this training and capability.


The Belgians and The Dutch

Both nationalities seemed to take their diving and their drinking as seriously as the Brits and the Swiss

[Hickdive]

Ah, the French. I remember one of my very early dives in the Med (actually my first 'suck it and see' dive was in the French Med) and I was quite surprised to see that, to the French, a 'single hose regulator' was precisely that - the interstage hose was the only hose they had. No SPG, no jacket feed and no octopus (although these weren't common anywhere in those days).

We did one dive that involved swimming into a cavern and exiting via a chimney that was just wide enought to admit one diver to pass at a time. I went in as penultimate diver but I came out last as one of the French literally crushed me into the floor in an effort to get past me and out

[StuartC]

Originally Posted by ridge

Mares Power Planna

Still diving mine!
nice and light for travel, purchased 1991