Check this vintage ad out...

[Open Ocean Diver]

Man, oh man, vintage wetsuits back in the day were sexy.

 

[Open Ocean Diver]

What was the training like before the BC? How did you do a drift dive and wait on the surface to be picked up?

 

[Scuba Lawyer]

What was the training like before the BC? How did you do a drift dive and wait on the surface to be picked up?

First, I don't recall drift diving being much of a thing in the pre-BC days. Even then, if you planned your dive correctly, at the end of your dive your steel 71.2 tank was neutrally bouyant at 10 feet in salt water, slightly positive on the surface at the end of the dive. Easy to float.

 

[Bigbella]

Provided that the diver wasn’t over-weighted to begin with, an all-too common factor nowadays (think scuba diving not sinking), it was never an issue.

I learned with the hard backpack in cold water with 7 mm suits and have one in my truck's cab, that still sees occasional use. Did "drift diving," before it became a common term, in Mexico, years ago; and provided that you were capable of a bit of snorkeling, were good to go.

Bought my first actual BC, a Zeagle, on close-out, back in 1992 or so.

Keep in mind that people dove for decades before the advent of the 1200.00 BC (just saw one, inflated in some threat display, at a local shop last week!) -- and it’s a wonder that we’re still alive . . .

 

[scubadada]

First, I don't recall drift diving being much of a thing in the pre-BC days. Even then, if you planned your dive correctly, at the end of your dive your steel 71.2 tank was neutrally bouyant at 10 feet in salt water, slightly positive on the surface at the end of the dive. Easy to float.

I only dived for a few years in SoCal in the early 70s before I got a BC. I didn't do any drift diving. I wonder what divers from Palm Beach, Florida would say about diving before BCs?

 

[JMBL]

What was the training like before the BC? How did you do a drift dive and wait on the surface to be picked up?

View attachment 827664

I started diving in France in 1990, when BCs were becoming less of an exotic feature (understand "frown upon"), "true divers" then dived with a "Fenzy" (understand horse collar BC). "Fenzy" were reserved for "2nd echelon" (nowadays N4 in the CMAS system).

Basically, you were trained to dive without a BCD, and you had to learn "poumon ballast" (ballast lung ?). The idea is to you use the amount of air in your lungs to adjust your buoyancy. A bit more air to make you slightly positive, or bit less to get slightly negative. If you weren't fitted with the right amount of lead around your waist, it was no pick nick at all : too much, you fell like anchor to the bottom, not enough and you were blowing up to the surface... Got my drift ?

As far as being overweight with lead nowadays : yeah, that may be the trend, but... I see more and more divers diving dry and more and more doing long deco dives... So my opinion is, it's better to be slightly over weighted than the opposite, for obvious reason... Nevertheless, doing things properly can't hurt, I will agree on that.

 

[lowwall]

What was the training like before the BC? How did you do a drift dive and wait on the surface to be picked up?

View attachment 827664

I doubt she had to wait very long for a pickup attempt.

 

[boulderjohn]

The Fenzy BCD was invented in 1961, so the BCD goes back in time more than one might realize.

But you're right in that buoyancy was very different in the earlier days. In his descriptions of his earliest teenage cave diving exploits (late 1960s), Sheck Exley described swimming for a while and then dropping to the floor of the cave to rest for a while.

When a group of us wrote wrote an article 14 years ago about teaching scuba while students are neutrally buoyant rather than on the knees, one of the questions we asked while researching was when teaching on the knees became the norm. Our group included noted dive historian and pioneer instructor (NAUI #27, IIRC) Dr. Sam Miller, and he determined that scuba was taught while negatively buoyant from the beginning because there was no means of buoyancy, not even a wet suit, in the beginning. The norms of instruction formed then continued out of habit after BCDs were invented and improved. It took many years before people realized it might be a good idea to make buoyancy part of beginning scuba instruction.

 

[CT-Rich]

The Fenzy BCD was invented in 1961, so the BCD goes back in time more than one might realize.

But you're right in that buoyancy was very different in the earlier days. In his descriptions of his earliest teenage cave diving exploits (late 1960s), Sheck Exley described swimming for a while and then dropping to the floor of the cave to rest for a while.

When a group of us wrote wrote an article 14 years ago about teaching scuba while students are neutrally buoyant rather than on the knees, one of the questions we asked while researching was when teaching on the knees became the norm. Our group included noted dive historian and pioneer instructor (NAUI #27, IIRC) Dr. Sam Miller, and he determined that scuba was taught while negatively buoyant from the beginning because there was no means of buoyancy, not even a wet suit, in the beginning. The norms of instruction formed then continued out of habit after BCDs were invented and improved. It took many years before people realized it might be a good idea to make buoyancy part of beginning scuba instruction.

My classes in 1980 taught with a tank and regulator. No BCD, no octopus. We were put in horse collar, orally inflated BCD for our last pool session ( of twelve). I recall it was presented as being useful on the surface more than it was designed to provide trim.

 

[Pressurehead]

The Fenzy BCD was invented in 1961, so the BCD goes back in time more than one might realize.

We only used a Fenzy horse collar for dives deeper than 18m, and for years we dived twin 63s and j valve.
My first jacket BC was in the mid 80s.
I thought these were fantastic, dived one for years.