Crazy Dive Gear Inventions/Innovations

[jadairiii]

This thread should be fun. Innovation in the early days of diving saw some weird or crazy products that made it to market, and in this thread, these had to have made it to market, no custom stuff.

My first entry is the "Buddy Connector", 1976. Octopus regulators were just becoming the norm, so Sound Wave Systems came out with this. Technically, we later saw this with Air 2's and other Inflator/back up reg designs. But this was specifically, run out of air, unplug your 2nd stage and plug it into your buddy's dedicated hose (hoping your buddy has one). Cant imagine what it did to the performance of the regulator? The price was $24.50, about half the price of an octo in 1976, new. But you could buy a used 2nd stage for that price or cheaper.

 

[Jaan]

The Squeeze compensating mask ... lol Unfortunately all your dive buddies got water in their masks from laughing so hard

As few more in this video

 

[-JD-]

[snip] Cant imagine what it did to the performance of the regulator?[snip]

I wouldn't think it would have any significant effect. That looks like what is now the most common style air-tool (including real air-hogs, like air-drills, die-grinders, etc.) quick connect (at least in the US) and pretty comparable to the various high-flow scuba connectors for Air2/SS1/Octo-flate units.

I would not want to try to connect a 135psi pressurized hose onto the Octo with it held in my mouth (per the add text). They take a fair bit of pressure to hook up. Besides, you'll still need to purge after connection.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

 

[CT-Rich]

The Squeeze compensating mask ... lol Unfortunately all your dive buddies got water in their masks from laughing so hard


View attachment 900862

As few more in this video

Truck nuts for diving.... and just as useful...

 

[OTF]

The Squeeze compensating mask ... lol Unfortunately all your dive buddies got water in their masks from laughing so hard


View attachment 900862

As few more in this video

The best thing about this design is that the bladders could have been any shape, in any location, and would still work. But they chose that.

 

[David Wilson]

That compensator-bulb diving mask was designed from scratch for Mediterranean spearfishing as far back as the 1930s. What makes it remarkable is the now universal location of the wearer's nose inside such subaquatic eyewear. Before then, underwater swimmers would have used instead a pair of goggles or a visor excluding the nose, which led to the edges of this eyewear digging painfully into the eye sockets at depth due to rising water pressure without the possibility of relief.

The story of this diving mask and its Franco-Mauritian inventor can be found here on Scubaboard at Great underwater lives: The Pulvénis brothers.

 

[David Wilson]

Inflatable swim fins

During the 1950s, P. B. Cow & Company was a British manufacturer of seaside recreation inflatables operating under the Li-Lo brand name. Water sports proving a popular and lucrative activity worldwide in the first full decade of peacetime, the firm eventually expanded its range to include underwater swimming equipment.

In 1956, Cow and Co. was awarded British Patent 759,521 for an invention entitled "Swim-Fins". One of the patent paragraphs reads as follows: "A swim-fin according to the present invention comprises a generally triangular shaped, inflatable, flexible bag-like member having an inflation orifice adapted to receive sealing means, a pocket provided on the outer surface of said member and means for attaching said member to a foot or hand of a user." Here is the patent drawing:

I chanced upon this patent many years ago, dismissing it as an example of a wild overengineered idea - a pair of inflatable swim fins - destined to remain on the drawing board and never entering production. But recently I came across one page in the Rex-Hevea underwater hunter's vademecum of 1958 to prove me wrong:

So the inflatable fin design was actually manufactured and marketed by Cow & Co. in two sizes and two colours for children and young people. Note the bilingual Italian and English caption, however, relegating this product to the status of a toy. Its greatest selling point appears to have been its portability, always ready to be folded up and carried around in a pocket.

I have never seen this unique fin billed elsewhere and suspect that the concept of inflatable fins failed to catch on with consumers.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I'm going to start out with fins. The first is a pair of fins I picked up while I was into designing fins, and this was really different.

SeaFinMods2 by John Ratliff, on Flickr
This fin blade originally did not have the spring there; I put them into the fin. Without the springs, the blade simply moved back and forth within a set angle, and when it got to its end point, stopped suddenly creating a lot of stress on my knees. So I added the springs, and that helped, a lot. But this design did not change, and was dropped within a few years.

SeaFinMods1 by John Ratliff, on Flickr
I designed a wooden alternate blade, and it seemed to work even better. This is based upon the scientific paper I read which detailed how that blade should look. Note the pointed front, which was designed to go between the two steel rods, and "catch" the water to initiate flow along the blade.

SeaFinMods3 by John Ratliff, on Flickr
I did tests on this blade in the pool, and it worked pretty well with a spring.

The Fara-Fin

Fara-Fin Mod-2 by John Ratliff, on Flickr
This is a photo of two pairs of the Fara-Fin. I bought this fin in the 1980s, and ultimately sold it because it would not allow me to point my foot for a good angle for the fin blade to work. These Fara-Fins had a great idea, but did not get the angle of the blade right and so were extremely hard kick correctly (actually impossible). Later, in the 2000s, I got two pair off E-Bay, and one had been broken (the blades were broken). I decided to "fix" the blade using my USAF Pararescue suture training (emergency medicine) with a drill and dental floss (much stronger than thread), and applied Shoe-Goo on top of that. Well, it worked for the blade, but what to do about that angle. I decided to take my electric drill, and put a sanding disc on it, then move the "stop" on the plastic swivel to ingrease the degree of bending. By doing this, I effectively made what I now feel is the absolute best fin ever designed. Farallon ultimately decided to take the leg brace off the fin, and market it without the brace. But with the brace at the correct angle, they are an unbeatable fin design.

Fara-Fin Repair finished by John Ratliff, on Flickr
Here you can see the "suturing" I did on the fin blade. A broken fin blade can be fixed!

Fin Collection 10-2012 by John Ratliff, on Flickr
Here is my diving fin collection, which I'll comment on later in this thread.

SeaRat

 

[OTF]

The Aqueon / Powerswim fin is one of the best crazy scuba inventions because apparently it actually worked. There are some incredible reports of speed and endurance with these things. @John C. Ratliff

Amazing Underwater Flight! - FKA Kiteboarding Forums

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Thread 'Vintage 1960's Innerspace Aquen Aqueon Hydrofoil'

Jan 27, 2021

I recently bought a Aqueon swimming device made by Innerspace, but it was shipped to me disassembled. I was wondering if anyone out there have one that they could get me some pictures of with special detail to how the springs, bolts and wing nut are oriented and in what order? I plan on testing it out next month in the Rainbow River if I can get it assembled correctly in time.

Thanks in advance

Rob

WWW.theSCUBAmuszeum.com

• 1969ivan1
• Replies: 13
• Forum: Vintage Diving & Equipment

The Aqueon, and Possible 3rd Generation U/W Swimming Devices | Vintage Scuba Diving Community Forum

Some years ago, I uploaded this image to our website, and it's still there. Right in the center is the Aqueon, and underwater

vintagescuba.proboards.com

J

Thread 'Can Anyone Out There Bring Us Up To Date On Current Progress Of "Powerswim" (DARPA)'

May 25, 2019

Will this state-of-the-art equipment and training soon become standard fare for basic or advanced scuba certifications for general students, or are they restricted for military use only? Are a lot of instructors by now being certified to teach with use of this advanced scuba gear? Well worth the time and investment to bring scuba diving further into our 21st century with these remarkable improvements. Hopefully being made available to more general scuba audiences and participants.

• John ("Popeye") Renshaw
• Replies: 25
• Forum: Diving History: Tales from the Abyss