le cousteau questions

[H2Andy]

i was watching the Cousteau DVD "Finding the Brittanic" and i saw their gear
configuration for the first time (have to watch the rest)

they were using triples (instead of doubles), but what stumped me was two things:

1. they had little "balloons" (some had two, some one) right on the back of the
manifolds. any clue what these are?

2. other than wet suits, i didn't see them wear any bouyancy devices. they did
have backplates, but no wings... did i miss the wings?

thanks in advance

 

[rndboulder]

If you do a search for Cousteau Equipment or Triple tanks you will find extensive discussion on this topic. Here is a brief answer:

The Floats were to counteract the negative buoyancy of the triple steel tanks. They are roughly 72cf each.

They used no back plates or BC's. They had a simple strap harness attached to the tanks. The Cousteau divers dove without bc's well into the 1990's. It was largely for aesthetics. There is a lot of discussion of diving without a bc both here and at www.vintagescubasupply.com feel free to pm me with questions. I have done extensive research and I have a small collection of original Cousteau Equipment.
-Ryan

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I saw anywhere from 1 to 3 balls on the tanks and no BC's/wings.

If memory serves me correctly Cousteau dove the Britannic in 1975 and while BC's were commonly used by then, Cousteau was a bit of a die hard in some respects. Even though they were well on their way out, Cousteau preferred double hose regs (from what I have heard, the French version of the Mistral was a favorite.) Most double hose regs, including the Mistral, did not have provisions for a power inflator and oral inflation is a bit of a pain with a double hose reg, so I suspect they were not worn as they were not seen as being worth the trouble.

Which brings us to the balls. They appeared to be incompressible so I suspect they were added to increase bouyancy at depth with what would otherwise be a very negative configuration, especially at depth with wet suit compression and with nearly full tanks.

Given that they ended the dive by entering an in water recompression chamber at 150 ft., being too bouyant at the end of the dive would not be an issue so it would make sense to configure themselves to be neutrally bouyant at the surface at the beginning of the dive, using the 1-3 imcompressible balls to help offset wet suit compression and be closer to neutrally bouyant at depth.

That's my theory anyway.

 

[Nemrod]

They did not use BCs. They did not need them. They did not use octapus either. He also used double hose regulators up to the end and far as I know he certainly used no back plate either. The tanks were held to the diver using a harness. Safe to say he was not a Padi diver but if he was I suppose he flunked their one day course.
Lot's of us don't always or even mostly use a BC or an octa or even an SPG which Cousteau did not use either JFYI. N

 

[DA Aquamaster]

They did not use BCs. They did not need them. They did not use octapus either. He also used double hose regulators up to the end and far as I know he certainly used no back plate either. The tanks were held to the diver using a harness. Safe to say he was not a Padi diver but if he was I suppose he flunked their one day course.
Lot's of us don't always or even mostly use a BC or an octa or even an SPG which Cousteau did not use either JFYI. N

In my experience, you often do not "need" redundant equipment but when you do need it,you need it right now and you need it real bad. And perhaps we shopuld all consider that Cousteau's expeditions were not alwyas accident free.

I think if you compare Cousteau's '75 expedition with the '99 GUE expedition you can see the advances that occurred in diving over the intervening quarter century.

I like vintage diving and will dive with a vintage double hose reg as well as a horse collar BC that I usually never use (as long as I am using a relatively thin wet suit).
But having done a fair amount of vintage diving, I have devloped an appreciation for the advantages of much more modern equipment for technical diving. So if I were doing a 370' dive for 15 minutes on the Britannic, it's pretty safe to say that I would definitely not be doing it with vintage equipment.

 

[H2Andy]

thanks all for the answers...

very neat stuff

 

[Walter]

Safe to say he was not a Padi diver but if he was I suppose he flunked their one day course.

When PADI started, he'd been diving on SCUBA for over 20 years.

 

[ScoobieDooo]

"Which brings us to the balls. They appeared to be incompressible so I suspect they were added to increase bouyancy at depth with what would otherwise be a very negative configuration, especially at depth with wet suit compression and with nearly full tanks."

I'm curious - what effects did the pressure changes have on this incompressible balls? And what were these 'balls' made of?

 

[drbill]

They used no back plates or BC's. They had a simple strap harness attached to the tanks. The Cousteau divers dove without bc's well into the 1990's. It was largely for aesthetics. -Ryan

I believe the Cousteaus required BCD's before that. The first time I ever used a BCD was while diving with Jean-Michel and his team in 1989. It was required equipment by that point. I don't remember them while working on the Alcyone in 1985 or 86.

I dove for years without a BCD (just the old backpack and harness). The first time I used one was in the dive mentioned above. My BCD kept autoinflating and I kept telling my dive buddy (one of the Cousteau "dive masters") that. When she realized I was right, she asked me "What can we do now?" I responded "Disconnect it... I've dived without one for 28 years." The rest of the dive went great.

Dr. Bill

 

[drbill]

When PADI started, he'd been diving on SCUBA for over 20 years.

As Walter suggests here, Cousteau was a pioneer. Of course he preferred the double hose Mistral... he and Gagne invented it. How many of us used SPG's, BCD's or an octopus when we started diving? I didn't start using most of those until the late 80's or early 90's.

Did Lindbergh fly the Atlantic in a 757 with advanced GPS navigation? Did Columbus sail with an inboard for backup (and GPS as well)? Did John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, et al., go into space with the most advanced safety options of today?

Dr. Bill