Cousteau's son's death?

[cool_hardware52]

The basic premise, that you are "one with the wave" and your indicated or "pressure" depth won't change if you are neutral is true....... for the simplified experimental model.

A couple other factors can affect this. You may be neutral, but you still have mass, ~200lbs diver + ~100lbs gear. The response of this mass to the wave will differ depending on the period and amplitude. For long periods, and modest amplitudes, you will see little change in indicated depth. (Typical for the conditions I prefer, i.e. small swells, far apart )

If the period is short and the amplitude great, one could find that you are actually still going Up, i.e. away from the bottom, as the "trough" of the swell passes overhead, and due to inertia, starting to drop back toward the bottom as the next crest passes over head. (This is when I hope I chose to dive another day :11: )



When approaching the beach after a shore dive I go to the bottom~ 20 ft, get good and negative and watch the bottom timer to see the swing in depth as the swells pass in order to gauge the "degree of adventure" the exit may entail. In this case of course I'm not neutral.


Regards,



Tobin

 

[Sideband]

That just doesn't make since anyway- that close to the surface, the depth would not be enough to cause an embolism if you were "bobbing"....unless of course you were diving in 30 or 40 ft seas. We did a 30 ft free ascent as part of our OW certification and I remember the air just pouring out as we came up.....I don't think I could have held it in if I'd tried......

The greatest pressure change takes place in the first 15 feet or so. In the first 33' you double the pressure. The pressure doesn't double again until you hit 99'. "That close to the surface" is the worst place and the most likely place for such a problem to occur. This is where the smallest depth change will cause the greatest pressure change. This is all ignoring the wave, bobbing effect explained in the other posts.

Joe

 

[DSV1]

You can embelise in five feet of water, this is common in comercial diving were bad tenders pull up on the divers air line to fast just after the diver jumps into the water and, I've seen this happen several times. My understanding of the cousteau incident was that the diver sufferd sever head injuries sustained while surfacing. French Medical officer Jules Fortan was involved in questioning the cousteau team durring that investigation, and I can still hear him saying that the Calypso was not what he expected in terms of good condition durring this expedition. I still have some great pictures I took of the Calypso durring her run through lake Ontario.

DSV1

 

[advtech]

Tom:

Just a minor correction to your article. The Barque R.H. Rae was actually built by Donaldson & Andrews of St. Catharines Ontario in 1857 for the firm Rae Bros. & Co. of Hamilton. She was launched Monday October 5th, 1857 and christened by Miss Andrews, eldest daughter of one of the firm. She was described "as a piece of naval architecture she is pronounced second to none on the lakes". Classed A-1, the highest classification, she had a number of innovations.

The diver that died, was actually a Canadian reporter diving with the team but not a member of the crew.

More history and photo's available at http://www.vaxxine.com/advtech/rae.htm

 

[Tom R]

Ian, check your email, I sent you some stuff.

 

[DSV1]

Caylpso image lake Ontario

 

[drbill]

I was with Jean-Michel Cousteau here on Catalina the day his brother died in 1979 (?) Philippe was piloting TCS' amphibious aircraft into Lisbon, Portugal, and when the seaplane was landing it hit a sand bar, flipped and Philippe died. Such a shame.

Dr. Bill

 

[DaveC426913]

It is possible that he was holding on to something to stabilize himself. I don't know the exact circumstances.

It's also possible that he was not moving in unison with the waves isn't it? If he was loaded down with equipment and buoyed up with air, he would be too sluggish to rise and fall as fast as the waves did (a tacit lesson on the difference between weight and mass).

He'd start to rise as a crest went over, but once it passed, he'd find himself under a trough long before his momentum slowed and stopped his rise. In fact, he could find him himself hitting his own crest just as the wave troughed. I can see how that could happen so fast so as to catch an experienced-but-busy/distracted diver off guard.

Again, just speculating.

 

[Tom R]

I was talking to some of the divers on this dive, they have no idea what happened as they found him on the bottom, he did not have the experience to do the dive properly for starters and at the safety stop when they noticed he was not around, they thought he was on the boat already. After getting on the boat it was noticed he wasn't there and was found on the bottom.