The First Helium Dives in the Gulf of Mexico Oilfields

[Dan Kelley]

Can you tell us more about his background? How did he get into the salvage business?

Norman was a Navy Diver in WW2 and had a vast knowledge of diving in the Oilfield and the construction of marine vessels , so he knew where to place the air hoses, we only used air on sealed hatch covers to raise the boats I worked with him on, He was not a treasure hunting Salvor .Or a speculative Salvor

 

[Akimbo]

Norman was a Navy Diver in WW2...

Do you have any idea if he worked on the salvage in Pearl Harbor? That was a real Masters Class for the USN. The wartime "just get it done" attitude allowed for a lot of innovation that wasn't tolerated during peacetime. You couldn't do much if it wasn't already in the diving or salvage manuals.

 

[Dan Kelley]

Do you have any idea if he worked on the salvage in Pearl Harbor? That was a real Masters Class for the USN. The wartime "just get it done" attitude allowed for a lot of innovation that wasn't tolerated during peacetime. You couldn't do much if it wasn't already in the diving or salvage manuals.

He never mentioned to me about what he did in the Navy.. so I can't say .

 

[dmikeh]

This manifold is pretty interesting.

View attachment 447229​

I'm trying to figure it out. Do you think that there were multiple gas hoses in the umbilical? A quick disconnect so they could tap into gas on the stage???

Since I designed and built it I can answer your questions. Peter wanted to be able to switch between the gas mix and pure O2 manually. Partly because some parts of our breathing delivery system had been previously used with compressed air coming from regular oiled compressor units and mainly because he wanted to be able to control the transition of gases himself (not from the surface). The elaborate valves were all HP needle valves which also allowed some flow regulation. The only pipe fittings we could obtain on short notice were standard schedule 40 galvanized pipe so that's what I had to work with. The basic idea was the diver would leave the surface breathing pure O2, oxygenate until he reached 60 feet, and then switch to bottom mix. He would also switch back to pure O2 in the water when he reached his water stops on ascent. We leak tested the manifold on air but not on helium. Big mistake. It leaked like a sieve when we did the gas switch to HeO2 on the first (Peter's) dive.
Mike Hughes