Vintage?

[RickI]

A lot of excellent background information on fins, thank you all for that! Speaking of vintage UW gear, has anyone used one of these?

http://fksa.org/showthread.php?page=14&t=6089


We used a variant in the 1970's, with a 300 ft. power cord? Had live wires pull out while the cable was still tied to the DPV once at 60 ft. You can get a real nice arc from 220 V 40 A underwater. Ended up cutting it free, very carefully!

 

[RickI]

I bet some folks on here used these at some time in the past. Still, they are an odd old anachronism. The one shown is a Rebikoff Pegasus, the one we used was a Remora. The Pegasus carried a heavy payload of expensive ($25 k in 1970's money) silver zinc batteries. The Remora towed a 13.5 ft. Whaler or other craft on the surface with a large diesel generator. The DPV had plenty of thrust so the boat wasn't much of a problem. There were some interesting incidents however.

Dimitri was an inventor, developed so much in the way of diver propulsion and UW imaging (still, photogrammetric, cine, video and lighting systems). We had a number of systems, used to do photogrammetric surveys of damaged reefs, wrecks, etc.. Dimitri was a pilot so what could be more natural than "flying" underwater with an altimeter, artificial horizon, compass, etc. via a joy stick and rudder bar? He also believed in the Atlantian Road off North Bimini (aka beach rock formation) but that is another story. A unique man, now gone but created a lot of intriguing devices.

From: Home

From: Foca OPL appareil photographique haute precision

From: http://cac.plongee.free.fr/

 

[RickI]

Getting things back to snorkeling gear, what can you tell me about this novel contraption?

The brainchild of Alec Kramarenko
From: http://cac.plongee.free.fr/

Rebikoff strangely enough had a patent filing for something with similarities?!

 

[David Wilson]

Getting things back to snorkeling gear, what can you tell me about this novel contraption? The brainchild of Alec Kramarenko
From: http://cac.plongee.free.fr/

Rebikoff strangely enough had a patent filing for something with similarities?!

Fascinating stuff. Kramarenko's mask is also mentioned in my copy of "The Compleat Goggler" by Guy Gilpatric (1957 edition by Dodd, Mead & Company), page 85:

Mr Kramarenko, inventor of the fish gun described elsewhere in the book, has designed a "full-visibility" goggle which will probably be on the market by the time you are reading this. It is shown in Figure 14. It consists, essentially, of a single flat pane of glass; forward visibility is therefore excellent, and the pane is sufficiently wide to enable the wearer to spot fish at good distances away on either side without turning his head. At the center of the goggles is a rubber bulb to equalize pressure in deep dives; this operates in exactly the same manner as the bulbs on the Japanese goggles.

Figure 14 shows Kramarenko in a goggle-like mask, covering his eyes but not his nose. The bulb is positioned on top of the mask, in the middle. It makes him look as though he had just had a good idea, in the manner of cartoon characters.

It's interesting that your picture shows two bulbs for equalisation purposes, but am I right in thinking that the nose is enclosed by the mask? Wouldn't that make the bulbs redundant? The snorkel at the front is very similar to the kind worn nowadays by competitive finswimmers:

 

[Sam Miller III]

I had some French diving books that were stolen from me by a Frenchman. Prior to them being stolen I recall seeing a mask like that in one of the books..

I also saw a simular masks which were owned by John D Craig, He said he had aquired them prior to WW11 in Japan or the far east.

The bulbs are for presureization of the mask air space; submerge and the bulbs compress forcing air in to the mask

However, I do not recall the snorkel on either the picture or the mask.

I recall that the name of the snorkel in that era was breathing tube --the name snorkel was aquired after WW11, about 1945-6

 

[Thalassamania]

We tried to use one of Dimitri's Pegasus vehicles for some photogrametric work at Lobos, it was a nightmare in the kelp forest.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Fascinating stuff. Kramarenko's mask is also mentioned in my copy of "The Compleat Goggler" by Guy Gilpatric (1957 edition by Dodd, Mead & Company), page 85:

Mr Kramarenko, inventor of the fish gun described elsewhere in the book, has designed a "full-visibility" goggle which will probably be on the market by the time you are reading this. It is shown in Figure 14. It consists, essentially, of a single flat pane of glass; forward visibility is therefore excellent, and the pane is sufficiently wide to enable the wearer to spot fish at good distances away on either side without turning his head. At the center of the goggles is a rubber bulb to equalize pressure in deep dives; this operates in exactly the same manner as the bulbs on the Japanese goggles.

Figure 14 shows Kramarenko in a goggle-like mask, covering his eyes but not his nose. The bulb is positioned on top of the mask, in the middle. It makes him look as though he had just had a good idea, in the manner of cartoon characters.

It's interesting that your picture shows two bulbs for equalisation purposes, but am I right in thinking that the nose is enclosed by the mask? Wouldn't that make the bulbs redundant? The snorkel at the front is very similar to the kind worn nowadays by competitive finswimmers:

The snorkels were probably hand-made and used in competitive finswimming. These were common in the Eastern block countries (USSR at the time), where finswimming competitions were common. Finswimming spread to China and Asia, and South America, but never really took off in North America. However, if you google "finswimming" you will find USA teams now competing. In the USA, the Underwater Society of America, and USA Finswimming, are the governing bodies.

SeaRat

 

[David Wilson]

Further to my message about the Kramarenko mask, access Fabio Vitale's Historical Diving Society of Italy publication "Viaggio nelle attrezzature sportive degli anni '50" (A tour of 1950s sports equipment) at
www.hdsitalia.com/articoli/20_attrezzature.pdf
The document relates to diving masks of the 1950s and it's well worth perusing if you want to find out about the range of eyewear for European divers during that decade. Have a look at the illustration of item 16 and notice how similar it is to Kramarenko's design. The Italian caption translates roughly (my foreign languages are French and German, not Italian) into English as:

French mask made from blue rubber with skirts to increase grip and to reduce pressure, a steel rim and a security glass pane. The LUXURY model features two "compensator spheres", which should enable negative internal pressure to be eliminated during descents to the depths.

The final sentence tallies with Sam's explanation of the bulbs on Kramamrenko's prototype mask. It would appear that his mask was eventually marketed commercially.

 

[Sam Miller III]

We tried to use one of Dimitri's Pegasus vehicles for some photogrametric work at Lobos, it was a nightmare in the kelp forest.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We also wanted to try Dimitri Ribikoff's Pegasus for the Beaver DDS program.

He came by for a meeting which was held in the lobby of the office...Seems he was too RED for that era of the cold war.

We didn't purchase one. He did present me with a Pegasus instruction manual which was about 3/4 (1.5 CM) thick--never took the time to read it.

sdm

 

[RickI]

Thank you for your detailed insight on the Kramarenko mask David. It is very helpful as is the Italian reference too. I suspect he fixated on the use of bulbs on some Japanese goggles and concluded they were essential hardware on his mask prototype. I suspect he may not have considered that by exhaling through his nose they wouldn't be necessary. I believe you are right, such would make the unusual bulbs redundant.

I wonder if the developers of the competitive fin swimming snorkel went this far back for inspiration for the current an inline snorkel? Martin Stepanek, world record holder in a couple of free diving disciplines got his start at 16 in fin swimming in what was then Czechoslovakia. He credits the demanding regiment as providing a good start to competitive breathhold diving later on. F.I.I. Freediving Instructors International - from the beginner to the instructor I had never heard of fin swimming prior to this coming out in the interview a couple of years ago. Thanks for the update on the practice John including in the USA. I've noticed these type of snorkels show up in some swimming gear catalogues. Looks like they could still generate some substantial breathing resistance for full sized adults complicating an already demanding cardio regimen. I'll ask Martin about it.