Most Significant Living Divers

[SEALAB Author Ben H.]

Just wanted to make sure Bob Barth made this list - still the only living diver to have taken part in all the laboratory simulations leading up to the U.S. Navy's SEALAB program and to have been an "aquanaut" for SEALAB I, II and III. Barth is sort of like diving's Mercury Seven all rolled into one but would never toot his own horn in this way, so thought I should. This picture from my book shows Barth getting ready to spend more than a week in a mixed-gas lab chamber under pressure equivalent to a 200-foot dive:

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[Thalassamania]

Lee Somers, Jim Stewart, Lloyd Austin, Glen Egstrom for training and courses and such.


Karl Huggins, Craig Barshinger, Paul Heinmiller for modern dive computers.

 

[Guba]

Uh...never mind

 

[iluvtheocean]

i didn't see him listed yet -- but i would say Pete "NetDoc " Murray has had a significant impact on all of us -- since scubaboard has had an impact on so much of us, bringing all of us from all over the world into one crazy mixed up community.
No i'm not sucking up - but i wouldn't have even found the dive shop and great people i dive with - along with all the interesting information and discussions i've read w/o scubaboard.

 

[Guba]

Ursula Andress.


when she walked out of the water with that dive knife strapped to her leg and into james bonds arms, she inspired a whole generation of people that are now the movers and shakers of the dive industry.

I don't know where your eyes were (but I suspect I have a notion), but her knife wasn't on her leg...it was on her waist.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

The international scuba diving hall of fame inductees would all make my list for different reasons. Some invented things, some popularized the sport on tv or in movies or by their writing, and some have championed environmental causes. Here they are:

Early pioneers

• John Ernest and George Williamson
• Louis Boutan
• Henry Fleuss
• Yves le Prieur
• Benoît Rouquayrol
• Auguste Denayrouze
• Hugh Bradner
• Louis de Corlieu
• John Scott Haldane
• Maurice Fenzy
• Ted Eldred
• Max "Gene" Nohl

2000

• Lloyd Bridges
• Jacques Cousteau
• Ben Cropp
• E. R. Cross
• Gustav Dalla Valle
• Jefferson Davis
• Sylvia Earle
• Bernard Eaton
• Emile Gagnon
• Al Giddings
• Hans & Lotte Hass
• Jack Lavanchy
• Jack Mckenny
• Bob Soto
• Ron & Valerie Taylor
• Albert Tillman
• Stan Waterman

2002

• John Cronin
• David Doubilet
• Bob Hollis
• Zale Parry
• Ivan Tors
• Paul Tzimoulis

2003

• Chuck Blakeslee and Jim Auxier
• Jean-Michel Cousteau
• Frédéric Dumas
• Jordan Klein
• Frank Scalli

2004

• Dick Anderson
• Mike Ball
• Jerry Greenberg
• Kendall McDonald
• Spencer Slate
• Akira Tateishi

2005

• Dewey Bergman
• Ernest Brooks
• Andreas Rechnitzer
• Don Stewart

2007

• Neville Coleman
• Ralph Erickson
• Rodney Fox
• Paul Humann
• Carl Roessler

2008

• Cathy Church
• Bob Halstead
• Daniel Mercier
• Drew Richardson
• Ron Steven

2009

• Kimiuo Aisek
• Geri Murphy
• Howard Rosenstein
• Larry Smith

2010

• Eugenie Clark
• Nick Icorn
• Francis Toribiong
• Wyland

2011

• Howard & Michele Hall
• Andre Labn
• Clement Lee^[10]
• Bev Morgan
• Allan Power^[11]

2012

• Clive Cussler
• Ric and Do Cammick
• Ron Kipp
• Armand and JoAnn Zigahn
• Kelly Tarlton
• Leslie Leaney

Now the question is, who of the regular posters here on SB will make the list?
DivemasterDennis

 

[Akimbo]

Hannes Keller. The first diver to go anywhere near 1,000'/300 Meters

The Keller Dive

ummm ... backplates & wings were around long before the cavers were using them, plates were being sold and used in Europe & then in the US during the '60s. SeaTec had wings late '60s, early '70s...

According to this site: VDTdecalPage3

Maurice Fenzy developed the first ABLJ (Adjustable Buoyancy Life Jacket) in 1961. Ten years later Scubapro developed the Stabilizer Jacket specifically for Divers, and one year after that Water Gill introduced the innovative AT-PAC in 1972. The AT-PAC was the first of the Wings (this term is used to refer to a Buoyancy Compensator or Buoyancy Control Device with bladders placed on either side of the Diver's back)...

The Fenzy horse collar was not a BC at all. It was designed for emergency buoyancy, inflatable at depth. The Mae-West CO2 inflatable life jackets it replaced couldn't because there was no OPV or adequate gas volume. Air was supplied on the Fenzy by very small independent HP bottle. I am not sure who put the first power inflator on a horse collar vest with an OPV. Several companies were making Fency-like products and I am guessing someone figured that a power inflator was less expensive and lighter than that little HP bottle.

... Dick Long came up with the hot water suit, bless his hide. ...

Although I couldn't agree more with your sentiments, the hot water suit was developed by a French diver named Dupre and was first patented by George C. Wiswell filed in 1966:

Patent US3391686 - WET DIVING SUIT HEATING APPARATUS AND SYSTEM - Google Patents

I am pretty sure that the first suits used by the Westinghouse's commercial sat at the Smith Mountain Dam in 1965 were Wiswell suits, as were the suits on SeaLab III in 1969.

Sealab: America's Forgotten Quest to Live and Work on the Ocean Floor - Ben Hellwarth - Google Books

Dick did get some related patents and was testing hot water suits at Navy's Point Mugu Lab 1968. Regardless of whose idea it was (probably obvious to anyone who ever pee'd in a wetsuit), Dick is the one who made it happen and owned the hot water suit market for decades. Diving Unlimited's logo soon became a copper hard hat/deep sea diver soaking in a steaming bath tub.

DUI Celebrates 40 Years!

 

[fjpatrum]

I don't know about all those folks but I FEEL pretty significant.

Cool to read about the history of diving and the pioneers, though.

 

[DCBC]

ok... what would your list of truly significant living divers look like? I mean, those
divers who have changed the sport in some way and are still alive.

A few Canadians that I'd put on the list:

Dr. Joe McInnis, MD, NASA Physician/Aquanaut (SeaLab III)
Dr. Chris Brooks, MD, DCIEM (Decompression Theory)
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Dr. David Sawatsky, MD, DCIEM (Decompression Theory, Medical Advisor IANTD)[/FONT]
Dr. Phil Nuytten, CEO, Nuytco Research/Can-Dive (Inventor and developer of underwater technology)
C. Ben Davis (a NAUI Instructor for over 50 years and a pioneer in Canadian Sport Diving).

 

[Captain Bil]

Add George Perez to the list. At 86, he'll still backroll into 4 feet seas with a speargun and come back with dinner. George has been teaching OW diving for a long time and was an early cave instructor and dive buddy with Sheck.

And most importantly, he is a living encyclopedia on regulators. Look in the credits section of Pete Wolfinger's "Regulator Savvy".

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