Check this vintage ad out...

Does anyone remember diving without any training to 100 feet for an hour back in the day this all started?

Apparently with Aqualung’s self contained diving unit back in 1952 you could and they did. See attached advertisement.. dive to 100 feet for an hour without training and after 7 year no casualties.

Please share your stories if you started diving without training in the 40’s and 50’s and how you started.

 

Where do I sign up ?

 

"Below 100 feet and up to one hour" is intentionally deceptive wording. They aren't technically claiming you can dive 100 feet for an hour. All they are saying is you can dive up to 100 feet and you can dive up to one hour. They left out that you can't do both at the same time.

 

marketing being deceptive..the hell you say? It's a world gone mad..cats and dogs playing in the streets together.

 

Parsing words, can you imagine the lawsuits we would have today. Wonder how their owners manual describe proper use.

 

I was one of the first to do a Discover Scuba back in 1990 , Oahu Hawaii .
Their sign was similar in that it read " Even You , can discover Scuba "
I signed up immediately and never looked back ...

 

This sent me off on a search. If this was published in 1952, it was wrong in at least one aspect--a UC Berkeley student had died by 1951 (not sure when). They were right about no training required--who could require it, since the training did not exist? To my knowledge, the first training program started at the Scripps institute in 1951, as a response to the Berkeley death. The Scripps people made up the training as they went. They first had to figure out how to dive themselves, and then they had to figure out how to teach it. Apparently many of the safety skills included were not so much in response to actual accidents but rather to what, in their imagination, might happen on a dive.

If you are interested, here is where I got that:
https://tos.org/oceanography/assets/docs/16-3_hanauer.pdf

 

and of course the rest of the world were also doing their own thing and also with
rebreathers predating the aqualung and claiming their own collection of fatalities





You'll notice folks some references to pre aqualung type gear


“No chemicals involved; no adjustment necessary”

referring to the Co2 absorbent and partial pressure of o2 adjustment of rebreathers


“It is not bulky and requires no helper'

hardhat diving and your tender


So I would imagine growing up in such an era with a go get it attitude imbued
nothing would in this current wishy washy world prevent those that so choose



from continuing their quest and building their own stuff and diving it regularly
training themselves


and for the rest of the catalogue get into Vintage Double hose



Magnificent!


Literacy

 

Yep, my avatar is I, sometime in the early to mid 1950s. I "learned" to dive in Lake Erie from my father, who bought the gear and read some instructions. No wet suit, no BCD, no SPG or depth gauge. We had a packet with a CO2 cartridge we could squeeze to get an air filled lift bag if we needed help to surface. Actually, the full face mask was pretty nice and easy to clear. Air fills didn't require any cert. I wasn't even aware if there were certs of any kind then.

Damned wonder we didn't kill ourselves or suffer some serious barotrauma

If any old timers can remember the name of that rig I have, I would be interested.

 

Just look at the 1953 and above catalogs and they were still using the same ad but in 1953 dropped “with out training” part.