The Awful Truth (1937)

[herbdb]

Couldn't sleep in today got up early and stumbled on an old movie featuring vintage scuba equipment. It was supposed to be The Awful Truth, an old Cary Grant movie, but i realized later it was Seahunt. The opening sequences have some great shots as well as some insights into scuba instruction and search and rescue from that era.

Equipment has come a long way since then. Vintage equipment enthusiasts will love it.

 

[DaleC]

Seahunt? That sounds like an interesting show...

It's very well known in vintage circles. There's even a thread going on about it in this forum right now. In fact, except for the guitar riff in "smoke on the water" the opening score is probably the easiest song you could get a NAVED convention to hum a long to "en masse".

 

[herbdb]

I get the irony. I was channel flipping - saw the diving scenes and my TIVo told me it I was watching that particular movie. I had it record, then when I rewound found out TIVO was wrong. I edited the post, but could not delete the thread.

Sorry for my confusion.

It was a great episode, new for me, dive instructor using morse code with knife against tank to communicate with students, search pattern for lost diver using a monster reel with hemp rope.

 

[oldmossback]

It was a great episode, new for me, dive instructor using morse code with knife against tank to communicate with students, search pattern for lost diver using a monster reel with hemp rope.

Necessity is the mother of invention...........or something like that..........there were no Diver Joes/Lesiure Pros etc, back then.........or many dive shops for that matter........in Fort Worth for years the first dive shop was a sporting goods, gun shop....Cromer Aces on the corner of 4th and Commerce....

The first real honest to God dive shop was Fort Worth Skin Diving Schools.....(nasds). opened in 1966..and even then he had few speciality items........just tanks, suits, regs, mask etc...he still is in business today.....everything else we got at the hardware store...........made our own so to speak.....

I made my own weights on a boyscout cook stove and hand carved wooden mold. Ugly suckers but they worked..........I still have one or two of them left that I haven't since molded into .44/.45 cal. bullets........

My first knife was a 5" hunting knife that I waxed the blade every so often to stop rust.....scabbard was canvas from a aircraft engine cover my father brought home. I cut and sewed it into a knife shape and then painted with black magic neoprene cement...........I had it for years before my kids lost it..........

 

[herbdb]

I am really interested in the old stuff. Different days for sure. I have enough trouble with buoyancy using a BC. It must have taken a lot of practice to dive without one. They make it look effortless in these old movies.

 

[Wayward Son]

well, we never knew we needed one...

 

[Wayward Son]

what channel was sea hunt on?

 

[vintagediver]

I am really interested in the old stuff. Different days for sure. I have enough trouble with buoyancy using a BC. It must have taken a lot of practice to dive without one. They make it look effortless in these old movies.

It takes more practice to dive with one.

 

[duckbill]

Too bad you missed "The Awful Truth". It's one of my favorite movies.

 

[elmer fudd]

It takes more practice to dive with one.

I mostly agree with this.

You can take a complete newbie with a BC, overweight them, tell them to push the small button 'til they float and the big one 'til they sink and they can kind of muddle through with diving. Of course they'll be bumping the bottom, making mini ascents and the last 10' or so of their ascent will be uncontrolled but it will all kind of work.

Being really in control of your buoyancy with a BC or a drysuit however takes much more practice.

Diving without a BC initially requires more finesse. You have to be weighted right and you have to understand how wetsuit compression and tank pressure affects your buoyancy. You also have to be more aware of your breathing as your lungs largely control your buoyancy. You can't just dump an overweighted novice into the water.

In my experience though, you learn that stuff pretty quick and it becomes second nature. After a dozen dives or so with no BC, there's nothing to it. You just swim down, swim around and swim back up. There's no buttons to push or air to vent. If you're a little negative, you compensate by breathing a little deeper and angling your body up a little. If you're too positive, you breathe shallow and angle down. Sometimes you might pick up a rock, scull a little or give yourself an occasional push off the bottom.

The colder the water and the thicker your suit, the more pronounced the buoyancy shift will be. Until November of last year though, I was regularly diving a 7mm wetsuit in 50 degree water with no BC.