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Jacques-Yves Cousteau, was a French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author. He co-invented the first successful open-circuit self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, ("SCUBA"), called the Aqua-Lung, which assisted him in producing some of the first underwater documentaries.
A scuba set, originally just scuba, is any breathing apparatus that is entirely carried by an underwater diver and provides the diver with breathing gas at the ambient pressure. Scuba is an anacronym for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. Although strictly speaking the scuba set is only the diving equipment that is required for providing breathing gas to the diver, general usage includes the harness or rigging by which it is carried, and those accessories which are integral parts of the harness and breathing apparatus assembly, such as a jacket or wing style buoyancy compensator and instruments mounted in a combined housing with the pressure gauge, and in the looser sense, it has been used to refer to all the diving equipment used by the scuba diver, though this would more commonly and accurately be termed scuba equipment or scuba gear. Scuba is overwhelmingly the most common underwater breathing system used by recreational divers and is also used in professional diving when it provides advantages, usually of mobility and range, over surface-supplied diving systems, and is allowed by the relevant legislation and code of practice.
The timeline of underwater diving technology is a chronological list of notable events in the history of the development of underwater diving equipment. With the partial exception of breath-hold diving, the development of underwater diving capacity, scope, and popularity, has been closely linked to available technology, and the physiological constraints of the underwater environment.
Snorkeling is the practice of swimming on or through a body of water while equipped with a diving mask, a shaped breathing tube called a snorkel, and usually swimfins. In cooler waters, a wetsuit may also be worn. The use of this equipment allows the snorkeler to observe underwater attractions for extended periods with relatively little effort and to breathe while face-down at the surface.
Aqua-Lung was the first open-circuit, self-contained underwater breathing apparatus to achieve worldwide popularity and commercial success. This class of equipment is now commonly referred to as a twin-hose diving regulator, or demand valve. The Aqua-Lung was invented in France during the winter of 1942–1943 by two Frenchmen: engineer Émile Gagnan and Jacques Cousteau, who was a Naval Lieutenant. It allowed Cousteau and Gagnan to film and explore underwater more easily.
Swimfins, swim fins, diving fins, or flippers are finlike accessories worn on the feet, legs or hands and made from rubber, plastic, carbon fiber or combinations of these materials, to aid movement through the water in water sports activities such as swimming, bodyboarding, bodysurfing, float-tube fishing, kneeboarding, riverboarding, scuba diving, snorkeling, spearfishing, underwater hockey, underwater rugby and various other types of underwater diving.
A clearance diver was originally a specialist naval diver who used explosives underwater to remove obstructions to make harbours and shipping channels safe to navigate, but the term "clearance diver" was later used to include other naval underwater work. Units of clearance divers were first formed during and after World War II to clear ports and harbours in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe of unexploded ordnance and shipwrecks and booby traps laid by the Germans.
The International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame (ISDHF) is an annual event that recognizes those who have contributed to the success and growth of recreational scuba diving in dive travel, entertainment, art, equipment design and development, education, exploration and adventure. It was founded in 2000 by the Cayman Islands Ministry of Tourism. Currently, it exists virtually with plans for a physical facility to be built at a future time.
Norbert Oscar Gugen co-founded the British Sub-Aqua Club, "the largest and most successful diving club in the world", and the partnership E. T. Skinner & Co. Ltd., which became Typhoon International, "the world’s largest manufacturer of drysuits". Born Norbert Oscar Gugenbichler in Paris with dual Austrian and French citizenship, he was naturalised British as "Manager and Secretary " on 29 August 1951.
Yves Paul Gaston Le Prieur was an officer of the French Navy and an inventor.
Vintage scuba is scuba equipment dating from 1975 and earlier, and the practice of diving using such equipment.
Aqua Lung International is a large and well-known firm which makes scuba and other self-contained breathing apparatus, and other diving equipment. It produced the Aqua-Lung line of regulators, like the CG45 (1945) and the Mistral (1955), among others. Until 2016, the company was a division of Air Liquide since its foundation in 1946. The company was sold to Montagu Private Equity in 2016.
The Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit (LARU) is an early model of closed circuit oxygen rebreather used by military frogmen. Christian J. Lambertsen designed a series of them in the US in 1940 and in 1944.
Maurice Fernez was a French inventor and pioneer in the field of underwater breathing apparatus, respirators and gas masks. He was pivotal in the transition of diving from the tethered diving helmet and suit of the nineteenth century to the free diving with self-contained equipment of the twentieth century. All Fernez invented apparatus were surface-supplied but his inventions, especially his mouthpiece equipped with a one-way valve, inspired the scuba diving pioneer Yves le Prieur. He was also a talented businessman who created a company to manufacture and sell the breathing apparatus he invented, and expanded its range of products to include gas masks, respirators and filters.
The history of underwater diving starts with freediving as a widespread means of hunting and gathering, both for food and other valuable resources such as pearls and coral. By classical Greek and Roman times commercial applications such as sponge diving and marine salvage were established. Military diving also has a long history, going back at least as far as the Peloponnesian War, with recreational and sporting applications being a recent development. Technological development in ambient pressure diving started with stone weights (skandalopetra) for fast descent. In the 16th and 17th centuries diving bells became functionally useful when a renewable supply of air could be provided to the diver at depth, and progressed to surface supplied diving helmets—in effect miniature diving bells covering the diver's head and supplied with compressed air by manually operated pumps—which were improved by attaching a waterproof suit to the helmet and in the early 19th century became the standard diving dress.
The history of scuba diving is closely linked with the history of the equipment. By the turn of the twentieth century, two basic architectures for underwater breathing apparatus had been pioneered; open-circuit surface supplied equipment where the diver's exhaled gas is vented directly into the water, and closed-circuit breathing apparatus where the diver's carbon dioxide is filtered from the exhaled breathing gas, which is then recirculated, and more gas added to replenish the oxygen content. Closed circuit equipment was more easily adapted to scuba in the absence of reliable, portable, and economical high pressure gas storage vessels. By the mid-twentieth century, high pressure cylinders were available and two systems for scuba had emerged: open-circuit scuba where the diver's exhaled breath is vented directly into the water, and closed-circuit scuba where the carbon dioxide is removed from the diver's exhaled breath which has oxygen added and is recirculated. Oxygen rebreathers are severely depth limited due to oxygen toxicity risk, which increases with depth, and the available systems for mixed gas rebreathers were fairly bulky and designed for use with diving helmets. The first commercially practical scuba rebreather was designed and built by the diving engineer Henry Fleuss in 1878, while working for Siebe Gorman in London. His self contained breathing apparatus consisted of a rubber mask connected to a breathing bag, with an estimated 50–60% oxygen supplied from a copper tank and carbon dioxide scrubbed by passing it through a bundle of rope yarn soaked in a solution of caustic potash. During the 1930s and all through World War II, the British, Italians and Germans developed and extensively used oxygen rebreathers to equip the first frogmen. In the U.S. Major Christian J. Lambertsen invented a free-swimming oxygen rebreather. In 1952 he patented a modification of his apparatus, this time named SCUBA, an acronym for "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus," which became the generic English word for autonomous breathing equipment for diving, and later for the activity using the equipment. After World War II, military frogmen continued to use rebreathers since they do not make bubbles which would give away the presence of the divers. The high percentage of oxygen used by these early rebreather systems limited the depth at which they could be used due to the risk of convulsions caused by acute oxygen toxicity.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to underwater diving:
The following index is provided as an overview of and topical guide to underwater diving:
This is a list of underwater divers whose exploits have made them notable. Underwater divers are people who take part in underwater diving activities – Underwater diving is practiced as part of an occupation, or for recreation, where the practitioner submerges below the surface of the water or other liquid for a period which may range between seconds to order of a day at a time, either exposed to the ambient pressure or isolated by a pressure resistant suit, to interact with the underwater environment for pleasure, competitive sport, or as a means to reach a work site for profit or in the pursuit of knowledge, and may use no equipment at all, or a wide range of equipment which may include breathing apparatus, environmental protective clothing, aids to vision, communication, propulsion, maneuverability, buoyancy and safety equipment, and tools for the task at hand.
References
- 1 2 3 "Louis de Corlieu". www.visitcaymanislands.com. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
- 1 2 Perrier, Alain (February 2008). 250 réponses aux questions du plongeur curieux (in French). Aix-en-Provence: Éditions Gerfaut. p. 65. ISBN 978-2-35191-033-7.
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