Vintage Dive Tables?

[gcbryan]

Has anyone collected vintage dive tables?

On another board someone mentioned being in Italy and finding a 70 year old dive table with NDL figures for 70 meters (230 feet) being 5 minutes.

I'd be interested to learn more about what the NDL times were.

 

[jamiep3]

If you can get a hold of vintage copies of the US Navy's Diving Manuals, or a copy of the New Science of Skin and SCUBA Diving, you will have the tables that anybody who learned to dive, probably before 1980, worked with. PADI's Recreational Dive Tables are basically conservative versions of those tables. Be warned, the old Navy Tables are for young men, in good physical shape, with a recompression chamber generally immediately available. That being said, most of my diving has been done either from those tables, or using a computer based on them, and I've never had a problem.

 

[Walter]

PADI's Recreational Dive Tables are basically conservative versions of those tables.

PADI used the US Navy tables until the late 80s (approximately 1988) when they came out with the RDP. The RDP uses the same format as the US Navy tables but they are not a conservative version of the Navy tables. Other agencies have modified the US Navy tables, PADI did not. The RDP is a totally different set of tables with different assumptions. Compared to the Navy tables, the RDP is slightly more conservative (for most depths) for single dives and considerably more liberal for repetitive dives.

 

[jamiep3]

The RDP uses the same format as the US Navy tables but they are not a conservative version of the Navy tables. Other agencies have modified the US Navy tables, PADI did not. The RDP is a totally different set of tables with different assumptions. Compared to the Navy tables, the RDP is slightly more conservative (for most depths) for single dives and considerably more liberal for repetitive dives.

I'll stand corrected. My statement was based on comparison, for the first dive they appear to be a watered down Navy Table. FWIW, I was out of diving from mid 80's till 2002.

 

[Sam Miller III]

If you can get a hold of vintage copies of the US Navy's Diving Manuals, or a copy of the New Science of Skin and SCUBA Diving, you will have the tables that anybody who learned to dive, probably before 1980,...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jamie,
You should acquire and examine "The science of skin and Scuba" It was published in in two editions in the late 1950s prior to the "New science of Skin and Scuba" It is a better historical document.

LA Co Underwater instructors association ( LA CoUIA) was established in 1954, they re-printed the USN tables for their member and students. !960 NAUI was established as a true association and they also provided reprinted tables. In late 1969 PADI was established as a for profit company and the powers of PADI, Chronin, Erickson and Chow, copied every thing they could to market (aka sell at a huge profit) to their members, the USN tables, the LA county reprints and of course NAUIs.

So PADI came in to the fold almost 20 years late and certainly was not a major influence in diving and or decompression.

Never the less thank you for your input

SDM

 

[Walter]

My statement was based on comparison, for the first dive they appear to be a watered down Navy Table. FWIW, I was out of diving from mid 80's till 2002.

Take a look at the surface interval table. Surface intervals of less than 10 minutes and nothing longer than 6 hours. Navy tables have a minimum surface interval of 10 minutes and don't clear for 12 hours.

 

[JohnQPS122]

I don't know if gear from the '80s is "vintage" or not, but my Dacor Log Books from 1985-1987 have "No Calculation Dive Tables" printed in the back of them. They are labeled "Simplified Linear System for Repetitive Scuba Dives."

Underneath it says "US Navy Dive Tables Modified for the Sport Diver. Copyright 1971 S. Harold Reuter, MD, Houston Texas. All Rights Reserved.

Next to them is also the "US Navy Standard Air Decompression Table. Simplified for the Sport Diver."

I don't remember if these are the same tables we used in 1985-1987. Unfortunately, when I sold my gear in the '90s my plastic copy of whatever tables I actually used went with the rest of it.

Wikipedia says the RDP was released in 1988, so maybe the table in the back of my log book IS the actual one we used.

Wow - apparently, Dr. S. Harold Reuter is still in business:

http://organizedwisdom.com/Dr._S._H._Reuter,_ENT,_Houston,_TX

 

[Sam Miller III]

In an attempt to determine the date the US Navy dive tables were established. I consulted my USN manuals..

The original USN diving manual"Hand book for seamen gunners; Manual for Divers." was published in 1905. It didn't contain tables but did list the pressures at varying depths..therefore of minimal value

The next issue the 1923 edition of the USN manual recently disappeared in a very well planned home burglary along with numerous other books, spear guns and miscellaneous diving related items, therefore is not available.

The next in line is the 1943 edition "Navy Department, Bureau ships, Diving manual 1943" It does have a decompression table for of course surface supplied air. However, at that time the US Army was also equipped with and was using the
TECO (Thompson Equipment Company) "shallow water helmet" (actually a full face mask) as a SCUBA unit along with Miller-Duns and other assorted surface supplied helmets. In the 1943 book "Diving Cutting and welding in underwater salvage operations" by Frank E Thompson, Jr, President of TECO, The same deco charts appear on Pages 41 to 47.

Therefore the USN decompression tables can be positively traced via two documents to 1943

The other USN manuals since that time certainly contain all the recent history.

>>> As a side bar I find it interesting that NAVSHIPS 250-538 the first USN diving manual to address Self contained diving was published 16 October 1956-- Two full years after the establishment of the SIO and LA Co program.

According to Elizabeth Nobel Shor's 1978 book "SCRIPPS institution of Oceanography ; probing the oceans, 1936 to 1976" on pages 126 to136 it is noted the students began using their private SCUBA units almost when they first appeared in the US in 1947 (possibly Air liquide units via Canada) The first Aqua Lung purchased by the SIO was in 1950 and was used by the late great Connie Limbaugh....After two students; one from University of Santa Barbara and the other from Berkeley drowned LImbaugh et al established the rules and regulations for diving which was published in1954--- the same year Bev Morgan, Al Tillman and Ramsey Parks attended the SIO program and established the prestigious pioneer LA CO program using the SIO program as a guide...A full two years before the USN established their program, which even to this day is based on and very similar the original SIO and LA county programs

I also recall when the USN issued their repetitive tables in the mid 1950s. Repetitive diving was nothing new to the California tribe. We had been making repetitive dives with in a 12 hour period since Rene Bussoz imported Aqua Lungs in the early 1950s and established Rene Sports (-Later US Divers, now once again Aqua Lung). Many California divers, including my self made many multiple dives in a 12 hour periods without serious consequence -- Or at this late date I can only hope there was not any serious problems!

Therefore, since the US Navy tables can be positively traced to 1943 it is altogether possible that the Italian tables are 75 years old. The Italian were very active in the underwater world prior to WW11 and certainly established modern underwater warfare during WW11, as evidenced by the success of the Xth Mas Decima (tenth flotilla) as documented in Valerio Borghese's 1954 book "suicide squad; Sea Devils" Or the most recent book 2004 "The black Prince and the sea devils" by Jack Greene and Alessandro Massignani. Two very interesting and revealing books.

Hope that this helps

SDM

 

[Gilldiver]

I'd be interested to learn more about what the NDL times were.

My edition of "The New Science of Skin and SCUBA Diving" is from 1966

The NDL's
are
Ft Minutes
40 200
50 100
60 60
70 50
80 40
90 30
100 25
110 20
120 15
130 10
140 10
150 10
160 5
170 5
180 5
190 5

Looking above at these numbers and then thinking about the time it would take to get a hard hat diver down to depth at a maximum rate of 60' per minute you might see where the 130' max sport diving depth came from.

It is not based on science, it came from the speed of the hydraulic winches the Navy used. At 130 feet you can get a diver down in just a bit over 2 minutes, giving a working time of 3 minutes before Decompression sets in, which was considered to be the minimum working time a diver needed for any observations. At deeper depths, the working time was less then 3 minutes and the Navy figured it was not worth it for a NDL dive. The SCUBA agencies took the same view and set sport diving depths at 130'.

The Navy tables are very safe if you use a few rules, obay them exactly, and don't push them.
If you hit 101 feet for a second, you have to use the 110' table.
If you go one minute past the NDL, you do the deco required for the first deco stop. It is here that divers had problems, the depths of 70 to 90 feet are the bend me depths due to the high DECO times required for going one minute past the NDL

Depth 10' Deco required for 1 minute past NDL
50 3
60 2
70 8
80 10
90 7
100 3
110 3
120 2

As many sport dives are in the 60 to 100 range, they are the most lible to break the strict requirements of the Navy tables by going into required DECO.

 

[Sam Miller III]

Pete,

You list yourself as a

'Diver
Marine Historian & Researcher'

Do you have a copy of or know someone who has a copy the 1923 edition of the USN manual?
SDM