I just finished watching Sea Hunt

[LarryHinDC]

ALL of Sea Hunt. I bought the DVDs on EBay a couple of years ago and finally finished the series. My favorites were the ones with the "killer manta rays" and "killer octopus", which turned out to be an evil diver with a rubber arm he was using to convince people that the people he killed were really killed by the octopus. :shocked2: He couldn't fool Mike Nelson, though.

One of my other favorites was the first episode, where an experimental jet fighter had gone down in 60 FEET OF WATER and the pilot was in danger of deadly crushing pressure unless Mike saves him. Never heard of a CESA?

We have a couple of seasons of Sea Hunt in our cottage on Saba for our guests' viewing pleasure and when we were last there, we had some of the dive crew from Sea Saba over for a Sea Hunt party. Most of them had never seen it and ALL of them were born long after it last aired, so they got a real kick out of it.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I got a real kick out of watching Sea Hunt. I caught up later though, I'm 51 yo so I am too young to have watched it when they first came out.
But what I found is that you just forget about all the technical untruths and just appreciate it for what it is and how it was intended to spark the imagination of the youth back then, according to their evolutionary point in time relative to TV shows of the era. Of course now days if there's one thing off and not a bunch of over the top digital effects/explosions 100 times greater than the best thing then, people (or kids) think it's stupid and boring.
I dig the simplicity of how shows were made and the other surrounding props and history, including the acting style of that mid century atomic period.. It's almost considered grade B by todays standards, but I don't care, I still love it.

 

[Akimbo]

… Never heard of a CESA?...

Actually they never did. CESA was contrived more than a decade later in order avoid teaching the more labor intensive “free ascent” techniques that were taught then. Of course there was never a reason to teach either one to pilots. Free ascents started as a self-rescue technique for submariners and was later adopted by Navy Scuba Divers.

Not that it should take away from your point that Sea Hunt’s writers tended toward the melodramatic. It sure worked when I was 7 years old though.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I loved the episode where the two kids got stuck in the sea cave during an incoming tide. The young boy was played by Jeff Bridges. They get attacked by a moray eel that looks amazingly like a sock puppet.

 

[j2s]

Tanks were made of Balsam wood !!!

 

[Akimbo]

Tanks were made of Balsam wood !!!

I wouldn’t be too quick to criticize on this point. Have you ever seen the absurd number of “takes” for a 1 minute scene for a TV show? After climbing up to the flying bridge of the Argonaut with twin 50s about 20 times I would a puddle of goo on deck.

I had an opportunity to meet Lloyd Bridges. Some may find this interesting:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/sc...ode-aired-50-years-ago-today.html#post6058791

 

[boulderjohn]

Free ascents started as a self-rescue technique for submariners and was later adopted by Navy Scuba Divers.

I found this explanation: Submarine escape and rescue: a brief history

These escape systems remained prevalent until 1946 when the Royal Navy held an inquiry into escape from sunken submarines. The inquiry found no difference in survival rate between those who used a DSEA to escape and those that did so unaided.2 As a result the DSEA was replaced with the ‘free ascent’ or ‘blow and go’ technique. Free ascent involved the crew member beginning the ascent with compressed air in their lungs. During the ascent the submariner breathed out at a controlled rate, allowing air to escape. This was a continual process, as the air expanded in the lungs due the decreasing pressure experienced en route to the surface. To limit the chance of being affected by decompression sickness, the escapee would use the bubbles of expelled air to judge the ascent by staying behind the smaller bubbles. To aid in the escape, a crew member might also use a life jacket or buoyant ring. In this case the rate of ascent was more rapid, which required the submariner to blow more rapidly throughout the journey to the surface. Buoyancy assisted free ascent continues to be practiced by Royal Australian Navy (RAN) submariners at the Submarine Escape and Rescue Centre at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia.

 

[Akimbo]

John

Another interesting aspect is that so many famous divers got rolling while working at the USN Submarine Escape Tower in New London (gone now).

Captain George F. Bond, the father of Saturation Diving, did most of his early research there. He and Cyril Tuckfield buoyant did a record setting 302-foot buoyant ascent in 1959 from the USS Archerfish, which totally changed thinking in the submarine navy.

Robert Croft, the father of American freediving, was a staff diver in the escape training tower when he set several depth records culminating at 240'… unbelievable in those days.

Interesting how everything is connected.

 

[boulderjohn]

John

Another interesting aspect is that so many famous divers got rolling while working at the USN Submarine Escape Tower in New London (gone now).

Captain George F. Bond, the father of Saturation Diving, did most of his early research there. He and Cyril Tuckfield buoyant did a record setting 302-foot buoyant ascent in 1959 from the USS Archerfish, which totally changed thinking in the submarine navy.

Robert Croft, the father of American freediving, was a staff diver in the escape training tower when he set several depth records culminating at 240'… unbelievable in those days.

Interesting how everything is connected.

I do find all that pioneering stuff interesting. What I also find interesting is the realization that as far as we have come since then, we are really still pioneers. There is still so much we really don't understand, so much we are still experimenting with.

 

[0002s]

"At this point my lungs were acking for air" - Mike Nelson

Season 1 - Episode 11 - Killer Whale
worse episode ever...