Dr. Samuel Miller, III

[The Chairman]

I saw on Facebook that he was involved with some GUE project that one of my friends was diving a few months back.

He actually posted here once to put a young whippersnapper in his place. That would have been JJ, aka Jarod Jablonski.

 

[Akimbo]

Well damn. One of the characters for whom I'd ask "just a little more time, please?"


When reading his posts, I always had a fantasy of developing a "Sam's Encyclopedia of SCUBA History".

I suppose it's still possible...

Interesting thought. You could start a thread in Member's Picks with links to some of his threads that you find most interesting. Others could add theirs favs in replies.

 

[jonhall]

RIP Sam.

Sam first PM'd me several years ago when I replied to a thread about Clive Cussler, who he knew and had helped train in diving. Of course he gave me a very long and informative post that detailed Clive from their first meeting to the present. Not sure which book, but one character is named for Sam. We corresponded a few more times as he knew I was from Indy and his early pre-CA years were in Evansville, IN.

Condolences to the family.

 

[lowwall]

William Hogarth Main, from whom we've derived the term "Hogarthian Diving". I wonder how he's doing?

I think he was referring to Greg Flanagan. I quoted Flanagan extensively in the thread Sam took an exception to: Why are jacket style BCD's the most common??

The quotes came from an old pdf file that appears to have originally been on the Dive Rite site. I'll append it, but here's a few relevant excerpts:

"I made my first back plate in early 1979 from a surplus aluminum road sign of unknown alloy. I traced the outline from the solid center section of the Scuba Pro BCP onto a paper stencil and transferred this onto the aluminum.... I used this first back plate on both Double 72s and Double 80s throughout the rest of Sheck's cave course with awesome results....

Vaughan Maxwell, another student in the same cave course, then persuaded me to make him a plate and I agreed, but by this time I had decided that a second set of bends running top to bottom of the plate just outboard of the center set of bends (in order to get the plate to lay flat against the tanks) was preferable to spending another afternoon of pounding with a sledge hammer. It was also at this time that I devised the harness and slot configuration that continues in use today, facilitating the use of a single continuous piece of two-inch webbing. This second back plate was completed the night before the 1979 NSS Cave Diving Section Workshop held in Branford, Florida, and was essentially the same as those produced today....

Having standardized the design with that second plate, I received requests to make more. Over the next few months, I proceeded to make additional back plates for myself, Sheck Exley, Will Walters, Dale Sweet, Steve Straatsma, Tex Chalkley, and other "old timers" of the cave diving fraternity who used them with much success, but it was my dear friend and cave diving buddy Bill "Hogarth" Main, through his relentless pursuit of cave diving, who popularized my back plate and harness as foundational components of what has simply become known as the "Hogarthian Rig".

Dive Rite has some additional details, including a photo of the plate Flanagan made for Bill Main at The Backplate: Foundation of Technical Rigs - Dive Rite

 

[Akimbo]

He actually posted here once to put a young whippersnapper in his place. That would have been JJ, aka Jarod Jablonski.

I never had much tolerance for these newbie shallow water types either. Maybe that is why we managed to get along?

I am one of the few guys on the face of the earth that could get away with calling Sam a "common air breather" to his face — a term I picked up from a US Navy Master Diver. He was the first Navy diver to lock out deeper than 850' or 259m. Come to think of it, that was the year JJ was born and I graduated high school.

 

[The Chairman]

Come to think of it, that was the year JJ was born and I graduated high school.

Wow. Drop the mic already. Wow.

 

[The Chairman]

I think he was referring to Greg Flanagan. I quoted Flanagan extensively in the thread Sam took an exception to: Why are jacket style BCD's the most common??

The quotes came from an old pdf file that appears to have originally been on the Dive Rite site. I'll append it, but here's a few relevant excerpts:

"I made my first back plate in early 1979 from a surplus aluminum road sign of unknown alloy. I traced the outline from the solid center section of the Scuba Pro BCP onto a paper stencil and transferred this onto the aluminum.... I used this first back plate on both Double 72s and Double 80s throughout the rest of Sheck's cave course with awesome results....

Vaughan Maxwell, another student in the same cave course, then persuaded me to make him a plate and I agreed, but by this time I had decided that a second set of bends running top to bottom of the plate just outboard of the center set of bends (in order to get the plate to lay flat against the tanks) was preferable to spending another afternoon of pounding with a sledge hammer. It was also at this time that I devised the harness and slot configuration that continues in use today, facilitating the use of a single continuous piece of two-inch webbing. This second back plate was completed the night before the 1979 NSS Cave Diving Section Workshop held in Branford, Florida, and was essentially the same as those produced today....

Having standardized the design with that second plate, I received requests to make more. Over the next few months, I proceeded to make additional back plates for myself, Sheck Exley, Will Walters, Dale Sweet, Steve Straatsma, Tex Chalkley, and other "old timers" of the cave diving fraternity who used them with much success, but it was my dear friend and cave diving buddy Bill "Hogarth" Main, through his relentless pursuit of cave diving, who popularized my back plate and harness as foundational components of what has simply become known as the "Hogarthian Rig".

Dive Rite has some additional details, including a photo of the plate Flanagan made for Bill Main at The Backplate: Foundation of Technical Rigs - Dive Rite

I hope that I'm never too old to learn. Thanks for correcting me.

I started diving in 1969, but that was as a 12 yo kid chasing flounder out of Ponce Inlet and jumping into any old spring. Two of us dove into a cave with a Boy Scout 90^o flashlight in three baggies. We were freaked out, and I never went back in until after the turn of the century. Consequently, most of what I know about the history of cavers is apocryphal, and I might have been sucking down a beer or six when I heard the stories. It's good to get the actual facts.

But, in any event, Bill Main did have a style of diving named after his minimalist approach.

 

[lowwall]

I hope that I'm never too old to learn. Thanks for correcting me.

One of the things I find fascinating about scuba history is that it's small enough for someone to achieve at least a passing familiarity with nearly all of it. And it's young enough to have first hand accounts right back to the beginning.

Although I'm afraid Sam Miller III's passing has severed the forum's last direct tie to the first decade of the sport.

 

[Manatee Diver]

"Discarded road signs..." somehow I picture Alachua had stop signs that randomly went missing.

 

[Akimbo]

Wow. Drop the mic already. Wow.

Sam was freediving and spearing larger black and white seabass than I have ever seen, including in Mexico. All that before I was born!

His cartoon avatar is no exaggeration. I've seen the photos. He also has a great speargun collection.