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Excerpted from The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure by Christopher Swann (Oceanaut Press) Before World War II the British Admiralty conducted a few experiments with helium in collaboration with Siebe Gorman & Co. Ltd and several of the firm's associates, including Sir...

The early 1980s saw a major step forward in saturation diving with the introduction of helium recycling, whereby instead of exhaling the gas mix into the water, it is returned to the bell and thence to the support vessel, where it is scrubbed, sent back down and reused. Recycling systems are...

Excerpted from The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure by Christopher Swann (Oceanaut Press) On June 26 1840 Augustus Siebe, a Prussian who had emigrated to England in 1816, delivered his "close" or "tight" dress diving apparatus to Colonel Charles Pasley, Director of the Royal...

Excerpted from The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure by Christopher Swann (Oceanaut Press) Towards the end of the 1970s, before they bought Ocean Systems, the Dallas-based energy concern Ensearch approached André Galerne about buying his company, International Underwater...

Excerpted from The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure by Christopher Swann (Oceanaut Press) In the summer of 1957, Associated Divers, at the time the dominant diving company in California, were contracted to provide standby divers for a job in 312'/95M of water. S.V. "Sammy"...

Excerpted from The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure by Christopher Swann (Oceanaut Press) Fitting out the Purisima (collection of R. "Lad" Handelman) by Oceanaut posted Dec 4, 2019 at 2:27 PM One of Dan Wilson's responsibilities after the sale of General Offshore Divers to...

Excerpted from The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure by Christopher Swann (Oceanaut Press) The worst nightmare for a bell diver is the prospect of having to rescue an unconscious partner. Prompted by the spate of accidents in the mid-1970s, diving companies in the North Sea...

Excerpted from The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure by Christopher Swann (Oceanaut Press) The first person to operate a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) in an oilfield setting was probably John Culbertson, a former Oceaneering vice-president for the US Gulf Coast and Central...

Excerpted from The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure by Christopher Swann (Oceanaut Press) Walt Thompson wanted desperately to get into diving. Born in Minnesota, in 1947–48 he drove a truck through the Middle East and Africa on an expedition led by Wendell Phillips to collect...

Excerpted from The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure by Christopher Swann (Oceanaut Press) The first formal diving company in the Gulf of Mexico came into existence in September 1957 when Al Warriner, a native of Panama City, incorporated in New Orleans as Underwater...

Excerpted from The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure by Christopher Swann (Oceanaut Press) In 1965, after chamber dives to 600'/183M and 800'/244M at the Royal Naval Physiological Laboratory, the diving vessel HMS Reclaim steamed to the Mediterranean for a series of dives...

Excerpted from an interview by Christopher Swann in July 1991 I still hadn't broken out diving [working for Ocean Systems in Santa Barbara]. I was a diver on the Purisima , but that was all showmanship for the oil company and there was no money involved in it, just a pittance. Bob Christensen...

Excerpted from The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure by Christopher Swann (Oceanaut Press) The arrival of saturation diving in the offshore oil industry led to the requirement for a new category of employee, the diving technician. Charlie Duff, the first and certainly one of...

Excerpted from The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure by Christopher Swann (Oceanaut Press) During the first half of the 1960s, the diver Shell Oil relied upon more than any other in the Gulf of Mexico was Norman Ketchman. Like most Gulf coast divers, Ketchman was essentially a...

When I try to reply to a thread in the History of Scuba Diving biography forum I get the following at the bottom of the page: "(You have insufficient privileges to post here)" . Any suggestions? I have no trouble replying to threads in the History of Scuba Diving forum itself.

Advent of Commercial Helium Diving Excerpted from The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure by Christopher Swann (Oceanaut Press) From 1956 until 1962 a company called Associated Divers dominated deep diving in California, in what were the first deep-water oilfields in the world...

Hannes Keller's 1,000' Dive Excerpted from The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure by Christopher Swann (Oceanaut Press) On December 3, 1962 a Swiss mathematician named Hannes Keller reached the astonishing depth of 1,000'/305M in the open ocean off Catalina Island in...