Vintage diving...what was it like?

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The rubber for the original wet suits came from Kirkhill ruber company in Brea California. It was WW11 surplus, having been manufactured as a covering of vechicle and airplane gas tanks.

As diving became more popular more companies began manufactureing the rubber. The divers demanded that it be thicker and more flexible.

sdm
 
Used in vehicle and airplane gas tanks, as in self-sealing fuel tanks? Interesting.

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I started diving "vintage" mostly becasue I coudl not afford niceities like an SPG or BC and added them in later. Besides many of the local divers were a decade behind the times and it was still a common configuration.

In some respects it was a real advantage as it placed a premium on proper weighting, proper dive planning and good swiming skills. In some respects modern divers are way too gear dependent.

Vintage diving is still an option when regular diving gets boring. Today I either do cave dives with the normal Hog/DIR configuration or I do vintage dives with set of vintage doubles, double hose reg and sometimes a horse collar BC.

My old Harvey's High Tide beaver tail high waist wet suit did not compress much, but even today if you dive with a 3mm or 3mm shorty, there is not much buoyancy loss to deal with at depth.
 
If you are really interested in what it's like, why not see if there is a vintage diver in your area. A post here or better yet on Vintage Double Hose forum will likely turn up someone. If you are ever in central NC, I always have a spare double hose and backpack with me. Most divers I know who dive the old gear are more than happy to give you a little instruction and let you give it a try.
 
When I think of the difference between diving 30 so years ago, and diving today, but with vintage gear I keep thinking of a picture I took of you in Bonaire, Hermen. I picked on you about diving a double hose reg, on a nitrox tank. It struck me as funny for a reason that I had a hard time explaining.

The difference is a lot more than odd combination, though. In the late 60's and 70's our gear was all there was. Cutting edge. My buddy had the original double hose, while I was using the newest US Divers single hose. We really had no concept of buoyancy control yet. You learned by trial and error how to weight for different conditions.
To certify all our gear was "dumped" into the deep end of the pool and we had to dive in, assemble our rig and swim to the end of the pool without surfacing once. 7 week of classroom and pool work. Navy tables, which none of us really understood very well, and basic watch and depth guages only.
Wet suits did not fit you. You forced your body into this stiff black suit of armor and it was tight in spots, and really loose in others; in the waters of Maine and Massachusetts where we dived you got some dam cold spots in those wet suits!
Masks were anything but low volume. More like long black tubes, with a window at the end!
Two things I remember from those days:
We had a ton of fun diving.
I would not trade the gear that I dive today for my original rig, for any amount of money!
I might dive with parts of it, but in my opinion the whole world of diving: gear, comfort, understanding of the physics, and safety equipment and training have come a long way from 1970! Would I dive with some of that vintage equipment, you bet, in a heart beat. Would I go back to 1970 diving all the way? Not on your life!
 
Any old time divers out there? Back in the day of no pressure gauges and the J valve, what was diving like with no BC?

Did they use less weight? And Getting back to the surface from depth must have been a chore with no air assist. Did they even have J valves from the very beginning?

Clue me in on what it was like...from the hassles to the nostalgic memories.

You realize there is a vintage forum here?

We don't use an "air assist" today either to get back to the surface.

Quite simply, we swam (swim) down, we swam (swim) around and then we swam (swim) back up. Why do you think this would be difficult?

Taken a few days ago, vintage brand new Voit 50 Fathom, vintage Sportsways SPG Sea Vue with banjo adapter, Voit Snug Pack, no BC, don't need one. Proper weighting and technique can eliminate the need for a BC even with relatively heavy exposure protection. The lungs make a great BC.

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Some people talk about minimalism and streamlining and reducing clutter, I do it.

We weighted, with exposure gear, such that it was required to swim down, once the suit compressed a bit the diver will go slightly negative, as the tank is depleted much of the dive is completed within the tidal volume of the lungs to adjust for buoyancy. By the end of the dive the diver will be slightly buoyant to assist the swim upward. We did not make safety stops but I can easily hold my 15 foot stops. Once on the surface, the diver will be slightly buoyant with the depleted tank, if an emergency develops on the surface, drop the weights and now the diver will be very buoyant.

I am often amazed at the amount of lead modern trained divers carry, this is often exacerbated by poorly designed equipment such as poodle jackets that are buoyant due to the padding and bulk even when sucked empty.

Do jelly fish need a BC?

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The less equipment you use, the less equipment you need.

N
 
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Hmmm, I had always wondered about this....what made the wetsuits less compressible? Was it just that you didn't use a 7mm wetsuit? I could never wrap my brain around the fact that you could lose up to 20# of buoyancy and how it would work without a BC of some type....

American made Rubatex G-231. Suits made with this material are warmer and do not compress nearly as much as the soft, stretch stuff in vogue today. As a result buoyancy shift due to suit compression was greatly reduced. Yes, we used 1/4 inch suits, roughly equivalent to a 7mm. I have a new Rubatex G-231 5/4mm suit.

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Much of the equipment available today is actually inferior and cheaply made compared to vintage gear:

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Back plates are the new thing, yeah, right:

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I believe the Sea Vue was first marketed about 1958, certainly in the very early 60s:

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She dove without a BC:

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Come on in, dump the junk, go vintage:

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N
 
ligersandtions:
What makes it better quality?

Look at this.

ligersandtions:
Does it keep you warmer?

Yes.

ligersandtions:
How come they don't sell it anymore (or at least not the same way they sell Henderson Hyperstretch suits or whatever else)?

The big companies are going after the mass market. The mass market wants things cheap. For an alternative look here.
 
It was the 60s, I was there and diving... therefore, I can't remember.

Yes, weighting was more precise back then for the depth you were diving to. Although I dove one, I don't remember much about the double hose regs other than that I was glad to switch from them. The J-valve rod often got pulled well before it was needed, usually by snags on the kelp, and therefore the reserve wasn't available when you went to pull it leading to a few emergency ascents. Sure was glad when I added an SPG to my kit.

As for a BCD, I didn't miss it back then. In fact, the first time I used one (in 1989) it malfunctioned, auto-inflating each time I descended. It was required equipment on those dives as I was part of a Cousteau group. When the divemaster realized what was happening (I had to show her twice), she said something to the effect of "What can we do?" I said I'll just disconnect the hose and dive without it!

By the way... I have NO desire to return to those thrilling days of yesteryear. I like my more modern equipment and would probably have trouble taking video with a fully vintage setup!
 
One reason that Rubatex G-231 is not used in mass market suits is that it needs a custom fit. Nowadays people are so fat, yes, I said it, FAT, that it is difficult for companies to make hanger suits that would fit the rotund humanoids now populating much of the planet. They need the 3D super stretch to get around their super size butts and bellies. N
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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