Dangerous gear?

[Nemrod]

JYC had more influence on me than Mike Nelson, for several reasons, one being that the series was off the air by the time we had a TV and we only got one channel even after we got a TV and it was not the one reruns of Sea Hunt were on.

Frankly, I guess my mind works differently, but images capture my imagination and the 50s image of porkfish on Molasses Reef by Jerry Greenburg did it for me, I was transfixed. I was on the Bookmobile and I picked up a book or perhaps it was a magazine and flipping through it the pages opened on that image and for the rest of the summer, the Bookmobile lady was tasked with bringing me every book, paper and magazine about scuba diving and cameras she could get her hands on, oh, and small animal husbandry because I was into rabbits and pigeons too. Oh, and books on "English Racers" and rockets, and model airplanes, well--.

N

 

[Bob DBF]

Originally Posted by rhwestfall
I'd mention the CO2 power inflator that was part of the BC's in the 70's and 80's.....

Now that's dangerous, unless a spent CO2 cartridge has been installed!

I missesd them for a long time, but I'm better now. I still would not be bothered if they made a comeback.

Back before the Horsecollar BC, we used Mae Wests for emergency surface floatation. The fill for the unit was a modified tire valve and inflating one was a PITA to say the least. Nemrod_Horsecollar - - ScubaBoard Gallery The CO2 cartridge was used for emergency inflation on the surface should you not be in any shape to oraly inflate the unit.

As BC's evolved the CO2 detonator was kept in order to provide that emergency flotation. Boyles law mitigates the problem at depth, and unlike a runaway inflater, when you dump the gas the problem is resolved.

In all the years I dove with them I ony had one incident while diving out of a canoe, don't ask, due to the unconventional exit I snagged the detonator cord on the canoe and wound up like a pufferfish on the surface still attached to the canoe. When my buddy stopped laughing, I slipped out of my rig unhooked it, put the rig back on and made the dive.

For all the accidents on the surface that resulted in the victim sinking and lost, may be they, or their buddy, could have pulled the detonator cord faster than dealing with dropping weights (if not jammed) or inflating the BC (if not OOA).



Bob
----------------------------------------
I may be old, but I’m not dead yet.

 

[agilis]

JYC's family life was but one flaw. He also liked to cast himself as a war hero and resistance fighter, but was in reality much, much closer to having been a collaborator. His brother was without a doubt and was condemned to death for treason, (later commuted). He portrayed himself as an environmentalist, but was likely responsible for introducing one of the worst invasive species ever into the Mediterranean. In the Silent World he also injures and then euthanizes a sperm whale calf and then shoots the sharks that come to feed on it, (in fairness to him, he was later very active in opposing commercial whaling).

Yes, he was a key figure in the development of the demand regulator, a gifted cinematographer and was probably more important than anyone else in popularizing diving, but he was also a very flawed individual.

There were more Frenchmen of that generation claiming to have been resistance fighters against the Nazi occupation(1940-1944) than there are people of my generation claiming to have been at Woodstock.

The plain truth is that there were far more Frenchmen collaborating with the Germans than there were fighting against them. JVC was fairly typical of serving French Navy officers after the French surrender. The terms granted by the Germans to the defeated French in 1940 established a puppet government at Vichy controlling the southern half of France without any German occpation, provided Petain's Vichy government remained neutral.

French resistance to the German occupation of northern France was very, very, small. Hollywood created much of the myth of French resistance, and the postwar French did their best to hide the reality of massive collaboration. JYC was a French naval officer in southern semi-independent Vichy France. Most French resistance fighters joined the resistance after the Germans began to retreat after the Allied invasion in 1944, some as late as the surrender of Paris. The only sizable group of long term French resistance fighters were French Communists who began attacking the Germans only after Germany invaded the USSR in 1941.

Many French, especially the Navy, had a deep hatred for thr British, whose Navy destroyed the French Navy while it was at anchor in its North African port. Some still today feel about that bloody murderous incident the way Americans regard Pearl Harbor. Also, consider the British and American bomber pilots who were killed by French civilians after being shot down in areas of France that had been heavily bombed. Thouands of Frenchmen volunteered for service in the Waffen SS. Some of the last fighters in the rubble of Berlin resisting the Soviets as they advanced toward Hitler's bunker complex were Frenchmen, part of a completely French Waffen SS division 'Charlemagne'.

Sometimes it's difficult to separate history from Hollywood. Look at the Battle of Britain's fighter pilots. Nearly 20% were foreign volunteers. See if you can find any French among "the Few". It's most instructive to contemplate the Battle of Britain's foreign volunteers. The percentages of foreign nationals in the RAF is an excellent indicator of the level of resistance fighters active in the nations from which they came.

I have a deep attachment to France. They are, perhaps, the most civilized people on Earth, but to expect JYC to have been anything other than what he was is unrealitic and ahistorical. He was neither a resistance fighter nor a collaborator. His wartime loyalty was to the French Navy.

 

[Nemrod]

The dangers of the CO2 inflators are much exaggerated. At depth, even below 20 feet it would not cause a runaway ascent unless you had a jumbo cartridge in there, anything big enough to fill the Mae West at depth would result in it's exploding on the way up. And, I know this as a fact because I have intentionally set them off at depth.

N

 

[The Chairman]

I wasn't worried about the runaway ascent... I just remember one going off on a guy trying to squirm through an opening in a wreck. He was the only one with a BCD, much less a CO2 powered one. He never made it in, though the rest of us did. Of course, back then I didn't know any better than to scoot into tight places like that. Maybe the BCD was a life saver in this case?

 

[CT-Rich]

I would detonate my old CO2 cartridges when I replaced them. My memory is that they took several minutes to completely discharge. Maybe it was just my Seatek jacket BCD, but it was slow. The early jacket BCDs had the problem of lifting by the armpits if you didn't use the crotch strap. Wouldn't call it dangerous, but was damn annoying...

 

[Paladin]

I would detonate my old CO2 cartridges when I replaced them. My memory is that they took several minutes to completely discharge. Maybe it was just my Seatek jacket BCD, but it was slow. The early jacket BCDs had the problem of lifting by the armpits if you didn't use the crotch strap. Wouldn't call it dangerous, but was damn annoying...

That is one of the reasons that I put a crotch strap on mt Aeris EX100.

---------- Post added February 11th, 2013 at 07:03 PM ----------

JYC had more influence on me than Mike Nelson, for several reasons, one being that the series was off the air by the time we had a TV and we only got one channel even after we got a TV and it was not the one reruns of Sea Hunt were on.

Frankly, I guess my mind works differently, but images capture my imagination and the 50s image of porkfish on Molasses Reef by Jerry Greenburg did it for me, I was transfixed. I was on the Bookmobile and I picked up a book or perhaps it was a magazine and flipping through it the pages opened on that image and for the rest of the summer, the Bookmobile lady was tasked with bringing me every book, paper and magazine about scuba diving and cameras she could get her hands on, oh, and small animal husbandry because I was into rabbits and pigeons too. Oh, and books on "English Racers" and rockets, and model airplanes, well--.

N

I'm a bit older than you, N. I was four when Sea Hunt debuted and I was hooked immediately. JYC came years later for me, so ol' Mike was my first SCUBA influence.

 

[elmer fudd]

There were more Frenchmen of that generation claiming to have been resistance fighters against the Nazi occupation(1940-1944) than there are people of my generation claiming to have been at Woodstock.

The plain truth is that there were far more Frenchmen collaborating with the Germans than there were fighting against them. JVC was fairly typical of serving French Navy officers after the French surrender. The terms granted by the Germans to the defeated French in 1940 established a puppet government at Vichy controlling the southern half of France without any German occpation, provided Petain's Vichy government remained neutral.

French resistance to the German occupation of northern France was very, very, small. Hollywood created much of the myth of French resistance, and the postwar French did their best to hide the reality of massive collaboration. JYC was a French naval officer in southern semi-independent Vichy France. Most French resistance fighters joined the resistance after the Germans began to retreat after the Allied invasion in 1944, some as late as the surrender of Paris. The only sizable group of long term French resistance fighters were French Communists who began attacking the Germans only after Germany invaded the USSR in 1941.

Many French, especially the Navy, had a deep hatred for thr British, whose Navy destroyed the French Navy while it was at anchor in its North African port. Some still today feel about that bloody murderous incident the way Americans regard Pearl Harbor. Also, consider the British and American bomber pilots who were killed by French civilians after being shot down in areas of France that had been heavily bombed. Thouands of Frenchmen volunteered for service in the Waffen SS. Some of the last fighters in the rubble of Berlin resisting the Soviets as they advanced toward Hitler's bunker complex were Frenchmen, part of a completely French Waffen SS division 'Charlemagne'.

Sometimes it's difficult to separate history from Hollywood. Look at the Battle of Britain's fighter pilots. Nearly 20% were foreign volunteers. See if you can find any French among "the Few". It's most instructive to contemplate the Battle of Britain's foreign volunteers. The percentages of foreign nationals in the RAF is an excellent indicator of the level of resistance fighters active in the nations from which they came.

I have a deep attachment to France. They are, perhaps, the most civilized people on Earth, but to expect JYC to have been anything other than what he was is unrealitic and ahistorical. He was neither a resistance fighter nor a collaborator. His wartime loyalty was to the French Navy.

I actually was aware of this and I'm afraid my opinion of France is pretty close to my opinion of JYC.



---------- Post added February 11th, 2013 at 05:10 PM ----------

I was just a kid when the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau was on and I remember being bored by it. It was another one of those nature programs that my dad used to like.

Sea Hunt reruns though, those were the stuff. I still remember liking those and counting the number of tanks on each divers back and thinking the triples looked really cool.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

That is one of the reasons that I put a crotch strap on mt Aeris EX100.

---------- Post added February 11th, 2013 at 07:03 PM ----------



I'm a bit older than you, N. I was four when Sea Hunt debuted and I was hooked immediately. JYC came years later for me, so ol' Mike was my first SCUBA influence.

I decided I did not like any of the BCs available, so I invented my own, which I call the Para-Sea BC. I still use it too. It is probably the most expensive BC anyone ever individually got ahold of...I made no money from it at all. But I did succeed in eliminating the crotch strap in favor of a parachute-style harness design. I still love the design.

Concerning JYC, I understand everyone's misgivings about some of what he did. But realize that by the time Sea Hunt was going, JYC already had one Academy Award for his film, The Silent World. He received his second Academy Award for World Without Sun which came out in 1964. I saw both films in the theater when I was a kid. My Aunt Ruth took me to see World Without Sun when I was in New York City for a visit at one of the very nice theaters there. Those films were spectacular on the big screen too! Those two films introduced me to warm-water diving (being from Oregon, our diving is a bit different). Sea Hunt came between the two for me, and I watched those episodes at the YMCA before swim team practice. I was in high school at the time. So I guess I'm a bit older than both you and Nemrod.

SeaRat

---------- Post added February 11th, 2013 at 08:59 PM ----------

I actually was aware of this and I'm afraid my opinion of France is pretty close to my opinion of JYC.



---------- Post added February 11th, 2013 at 05:10 PM ----------

I was just a kid when the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau was on and I remember being bored by it. It was another one of those nature programs that my dad used to like.

Sea Hunt reruns though, those were the stuff. I still remember liking those and counting the number of tanks on each divers back and thinking the triples looked really cool.

Elmer,

I too counted tanks, and thought it was funny when they changed within a scene on a single diver. Usually this involved an entry which had a single tank, and the diver (usually Mike Nelson) with doubles.

SeaRat

 

[Sam Miller III]

Concerning JYC, I understand everyone's misgivings about some of what he did. But realize that by the time Sea Hunt was going, JYC already had one Academy Award for his film, The Silent World. He received his second Academy Award for World Without Sun which came out in 1964. I saw both films in the theater when I was a kid. My Aunt Ruth took me to see World Without Sun when I was in New York City for a visit at one of the very nice theaters there. Those films were spectacular on the big screen too! Those two films introduced me to warm-water diving (being from Oregon, our diving is a bit different). Sea Hunt came between the two for me, and I watched those episodes at the YMCA before swim team practice. I was in high school at the time. So I guess I'm a bit older than both you and Nemrod.

SeaRat
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Knowing you by your many very informative verbose posts I suspect you forgot to incude the 1959 film "The Golden fish" which also won an academy award for live action short subjects.

JYC won three Academy Awards;
Silent world
The golden fish
The world with out Sun


"The world with out sun" introduced the US to the strange shaped Jet fins. You will no doubt recall that time most (all??) of the dive training manuals warned against using fins with adjustable straps--Then along came the Jet Fin.

sdm