Basic gear from mid-twentieth-century Britain: Britmarine (W. W. Haffenden)

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The breathing tube in the Britmarine range above cost less than the Clipper range counterpart because of its simpler, valveless design.

Britmarine breathing tube
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Once again, what constituted a "wide bore" barrel in the late 1960s differed markedly from its new-millennial equivalent. The top of the snorkel came with a thick soft yellow rubber ring to protect other water users from the hard and possibly sharp plastic tube opening underneath.
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Even later in the 1960s, the Haffenden company added another better-quality breathing tube to the Britmarine range, calling it the "Super".

Britmarine Super breathing tube
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This model came in black as well as blue or safety yellow. The catalogue image above suggests a close resemblance to the "T4" breathing tube (below) made by rival British manufacturer E. T. Skinner (Typhoon):
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The next items of Haffenden sub-aqua gear to be reviewed will be combined snorkel masks.
 
So much for the separate diving and breathing tubes manufactured and marketed by the Haffenden company. The firm also made and sold combined masks and breathing tubes, which allowed users to breathe in through the nose.

Clipper Combined mask and tube
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This model was a combination of the Clipper Standard mask and the Clipper tube. The supply end of the integrated snorkel was capped with a sliding valve closing when the user swam beneath the surface of the water. The demand end passed inside the mask through the top of the skirt. The intersection between the mask and the tube was reinforced to prevent separation and the basic headstrap came with extra strapping to form a harness for added security. The "Clipper Combined" survived into the early 1970s as the C110 Seadiver:
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The product description read: "C110 Seadiver Combined Mask & Snorkel. Designed for the beginner, with plastic lens and toughened plastic band for added safety. Fitted with fully adjustable head straps and free moving uncrushable polystyrene float valve.

An earlier version of the "Clipper Combined" came without the head harness:
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The "Clipper Combined" aka the "C110 Seadiver" was the combined mask & snorkel in the Clipper range. The Britmarine range of the late 1960s had its own corresponding model.

Britmarine Combined mask and tube
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This model was a combination of the Britmarine Standard mask and the slide-valve Clipper tube. In this case, the demand end passed to the mask interior through the right-hand side of the skirt, which apparently obviated the need for a harness-style headstrap.

The Britmarine Combined mask and tube made an appearance in a period underwater swimming leaflet entitled snorkel mask & flipper swimming and published by the "makers of Andrews Liver Salts, The Phillips, Scott & Turner Company, in the interests of R.o.S.P.A.'s (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) National Water Safety Campaign." A scan of the leaflet can be found at https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw7z_4bLjOOEZDlKR1NEX0NKbE0. The following from the fourth page:
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Andrews Liver Salts, I seem to recall, were popular with the elderly in the early to mid twentieth century because the medication "kept them regular" when it came to digestion:
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Andrews was taken for antacid and laxative purposes and its efficacy was never in doubt. I heard a story back then about one senior citizen who drank a glass of Andrews before going out for his hour-long morning walk. Suffice it to say that his pants were beyond laundering when he eventually got home; he had no alternative but to make a bonfire out of them. This is probably why the ad below on the back of the leaflet uses the preposition "after" instead of "before" in the caption "Nothing is more refreshing after snorkeling than a glass of ANDREWS":
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So that's it for Haffenden underwater swimming products of the late 1960s. We'll move on to the Britmarine and Clipper ranges of the 1970s in the next posting.
 
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The early to mid-1970s proved to be a decade when the Haffenden company expanded its underwater swimming product range, issuing at least three colour catalogues dedicated to sub-aqua gear. If you want to read these catalogues for yourself, you will find scans at https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw7z_4bLjOOEWU1LV05ZYklPLTg, https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw7z_4bLjOOEVHMwNkhQaVVkTzg and https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw7z_4bLjOOEUFdzaUJPQVE5ZWc. This expansion may have been encouraged by the publication of British Standard 4532, dated December 1969 and entitled Specification for snorkels and face masks, which prescribed dimensional and other requirements for manufacturers of diving masks and breathing tubes to produce equipment that would pass basic safety tests.
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One of the recommendations of BS4532 was the inclusion of printed instructions with masks and snorkels at the point of purchase. The Haffenden company took BS4532 very seriously, not only labelling which articles in its catalogues complied with the standard, but also inserting a 2-sided "Swim Hints" instructions sheet with its products.
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A scan of the latter can also be found at https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bw7z_4bLjOOENG42UUFXa3B6WlU.

In the next message we shall review the Britmarine and Clipper range of fins of the 1970s.
 
In my timeline of the Haffenden company posted at the beginning of this thread, I had the following entry:

1970:
On behalf of Haffenden-Richborough Ltd, Philip Wilson Haffenden secures British Patent GB1284765-A, “Swim wear”, concerning a swim fin comprising “at least one longitudinally extending reinforcing rib which has a resistance to flexure which increases abruptly at a predetermined curvature or angle of deflection.”

Here is the patent drawing:
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Philip Wilson Haffenden (below) was the technical director of the Haffenden company with his brother Wallace when it began in 1947. He was also borough mayor of Deal in Kent. His online obituary with photograph can be found at Factory founder and ex-mayor dies.
 
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As previously noted, the fins in Haffenden's Clipper range lived on to the 1970s, when they were available in blue and a new colour, orange.

C103 Clipper Seahorse fins
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As before, the fin was also available with a slightly different foot pocket shape:
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A year or so later, the fin was renamed the "Clipperfin" and changed its geometry once again:

Clipperfin
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Can you spot the main difference between the original and the new design? Yes, the blades are narrower and there are six ribs, including the side rails, instead of eight. The Clipperfin came with the original foot pocket variant as an option:
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The Clipperfin was manufactured and marketed until Haffenden decided to climb on to the "space-age materials" bandwagon, swapping some kind of thermoplastic elastomer for the tried and tested natural rubber used up to now in its products. The result was a fin closely resembling the Clipperfin in appearance but with a rigid, uncomfortable foot pocket. Not surprisingly, the new-style fins found few takers and Haffenden ceased their production within a year or two. Just because it's new doesn't mean that a change of material is always for the better!

We'll move on to the full-foot fins in the Britmarine range of the 1970s in a few days' time.
 
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During the 1970s, the Haffenden company sought to expand both its product range and its customer base. As the ad above from a contemporary swimming instruction book illusrates, the firm began targeting the growing recreational and competitive swimming market at a time when the "flipper float" method was coming into vogue in aquatic circles. The images below from Margaret Jarvis's 1972 tome Enjoy swimming show a class of young swimmers weaing Britmarine open-heel and full-foot fins for a game of "Frogmen's frolic".
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The company was also eager to expand the use of Britmarine fins and masks in scuba diving, as the front cover of its early 1970s catalogue shows:
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While the inside pages of the catalogue featured the mask and fins worn by this model diving off the Australian Great Barrier Reef, the red wetsuit and the breathing apparatus were conspicuous by their absence there.
 
On to a review of Britmarine full-foot fins of the 1970s. Three distinct models were available during the decade. The first and main model of Britmarine closed-heel fin was the B101 Sailfin.

B101 Sailfin
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The company's policy was to offer a variety of "B101" models with different features. For example, the light-blue version was non-buoyant, while the black version floated. Some versions came with ribbed blades, others with plain blades.

The Haffenden company also manufactured B101-style fins for other firms:

Jantzen
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Lido
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King Neptune
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King Neptune Tarpon fins were manufactured by Haffenden for the American market, tapping into the popularity of the TV series Sea Hunt featuring Lloyd Bridges. And no, I don't think the face embossed on the logo looks like Lloyd Bridges either. :)

The Britmarine B101 Sailfin fitted my long wide foot perfect when I bought a pair during the 1970s. It was almost possible to forget I had them on when I swam with them. They weren't the most powerful fins in the world, however, comfortable and adequate for gentle snorkelling though they were.
 
The third message today is about the "other" Britmarine full-foot fins of the 1970s. While the Haffenden company made closed-heel fins for other firms, they also had certain Britmarine designs manufactured elsewhere.

B101 Made in Italy
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This design resembled the Britmarine Neptune fin that Haffenden made and marketed in the early 1960s.

B99 Powerfin Made in England
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The B99 Powerfin bore a close resemblance to the closed-heel, closed-toe Hydromatic fin made in Italy by the French manufacturer Champion:
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The Britmarine Powerfin had very comfortable heels and the blades were much stiffer than the B101 Sailfins. As for the Champion Hydromatic originals, they came with very soft and comfortable heels and were particularly popular with female divers of the 1960s.

The last fin to be reviewed here was the Thermoplastic elastomer/plastic composite Britmarine Galaxia, which the Haffenden company launched when it jumped on to the thermoplastic technology bandwagon late in the 1970s or early 1980s.

Galaxia
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These fins were nowhere near as comfortable as the B101s they replaced and nowhere as marketable. For the Haffenden company they signalled the imminent end of Britmarine underwater products and eventually the company itself. The Galaxia was an example of new technology being introduced for new technology's sake and not as a response to customer demand.

We'll move on to Britmarine diving masks of the 1970s in several days' time.
 
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So on to the Haffenden company's Clipper and Britmarine diving mask ranges of the 1970s. We'll begin with the Clipper range and the first model up for review is the C106 Sealion.

C.106 Sealion mask
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The catalogue caption read: "C106 Sealion Mask. Fitted plastic lens with toughened plastic rim for added safety. Fully adjusted headstrap in tough rubber for perfect fit." It closely resembled the late-1960s Clipper mask illustrated on the first page of this thread:
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The C106 Sealion was particularly popular with young people, who were often allowed to use snorkelling gear in public swimming pools during the 1960s and 1970s. This relative freedom during my schooldays enabled me, like many of my peers, to learn first to swim and then to snorkel in the safety of an indoor pool. However, there could be mishaps:
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The above from a British diving magazine from September 1974. Unfortunately for Haffenden-Richborough, as the Haffenden company was known in the 1970s, the accident victim was wearing a Clipper Sealion mask when he died with a piece of the mask skirt missing, enabling him to cover his mouth as well as his eyes and nose. The Clipper Sealion was not designed to be a full-face mask.

Later on, the C.106 Clipper Sealion mask changed its rounded shape from triangular to rectangular:
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Another version of the improved design came with a stainless-steel clamp instead of a plastic rim:
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More masks in the 1970s Clipper range to follow.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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