Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

A Reflection on Hard Hat Diving

Victorian Divers

In a diving experience spanning over fifty years I have travelled to the bottom of the sea several hundred times using various types of equipment, but I always had an ambition to emulate the brave Victorian and Edwardian divers who went down wearing copper helmets and lead boots and relied on surface tenders to pump air down to them. These are the unique breed of men, the Standard Suite Diver. Unfortunately I have never had the opportunity to fully realise this ambition, but have come close to it on two separate occasions separated by over thirty years.

In the mid nineteen seventies, while a members of BSAC294 I did a course at Marchwood entitled, an introduction to commercial diving. My eyes lit up as we entered the classroom for there was a complete standard suit together with its twin bellows hand driven air pump, we all took a great interest in the equipment and the instructor explained the principle and main components, but sadly this was not for us.

Instead we were to dive wearing the standard lead boots, lifeline, weights and dry suite, however the headgear was almost SCUBA it consisted of a full face mask with a regulator worn on the back, this was connected via high pressure hose to the surface and a bank of HP air cylinders. We also had communication facilities with the surface tenders by the use on a bone conductor.

The dive was strictly for experience only, but has some lasting memories such as the complete inability to move on land wearing the boots without assistance and the realisation that if you fell in before being fully kitted up you would probably drown hence the importance of the life line, but walking around on the bottom at a depth of about 15 feet was no effort.

Standard Suit

My interest in the standard suit continued and at one time I was a member of
The Historical Diving Society, it was a bit of a joke in the club (BSAC 890) as certain members thought I should be an exhibit rather than a member. Part of my reason for joining the HDS was to dive in a standard suit but I never got the opportunity.

Whilst on holiday in Cyprus this year (2008) I had the opportunity to try out the other half of the standard suit experience, but it was not the traditional copper brass hat. The helmet (see photographs) reminded me of something out of a Joules Verne novel hence the title of this article. The dive details were as follows.

The undersea walking experience was organised by Abyss Diving and run by an ex pat named Scott Ferguson, he was ably assisted by a safety diver called Steve and a lady named Emma who ran the compressor. Accompanied by my wife who was a qualified BSAC 3rd class diver we had visited the site about a week previously mainly to see what was involved and to ask lots of technical questions. However it was early in the season and he had not prepared all the equipment and was not open for business in addition to this we had been affected by high wind and the sea was far from calm.

Tuesday 13th May 2008 was a bright sunny day the sea was calm and the visibility excellent when my wife and I arrived at the dive centre, it was intended that we should both do the dive but Anthea was not feeling 100% so made an excuse not to dive. I changed into a wet suit, apart from the helmet this was the only equipment worn as no extra weights were required.

The main part of the helmet was made from stainless steel with three toughened glass viewing plates, the collar was made from lead and the whole assembly covered mainly for cosmetic reasons, in GRP and painted gold, an air hose connection was situated in the lower rear portion of the helmet it was also provided with a handle on the top for carrying purposes and to assist the diver in and out of the water, the helmet weighted 30 Kilograms. The dive leader also had telephone communications with the compressor operator on the surface, his was the only helmet fitted with this facility.

Compressors

The compressors were mounted in a trailer (see photograph) There were two double compressors and one single this latter unit was dedicated to the dive leader, all three were electrically driven, electricity was supplied by a small mobile generator.

The output air was fed to a manifold which incorporated regulators, long hoses supplied air from this manifold individually to each diver. In case of failure of the generator the rig incorporated a standard aqua lung cylinder which at the push of a big red lever would feed air to the divers via the same regulator and manifold.

I descended the ladder until just my head appeared above the surface, it was then that Steve placed the helmet over my head and the weight was taken on my shoulders air was already being pumped in and my ears popped , at the time I could not understand this as I was not completely submerged, it was obvious that the air in the helmet was above atmospheric. I carried on down the ladder and finally stepped off for the short drop to the sea bed. I tried to walk away but found I could make no progress, this started to worry me. However the explanation was simple, Scott was holding me back until Steve was in the water but I could not see any of this as I was facing the other way.

Being an experienced SCUBA diver it felt unnatural I was not weightless, I was standing on the sea bed as if I was on land and with very little effort could do a sort of moon walk my natural instinct was to be horizontal and swim but this was not possible. After a bit of walking around the entertainment started in the form of feeding the fish, Scott had brought some bread with him and by crumbling it up we were soon surrounded by fish who virtually took food from our hands.
The dive lasted about thirty minutes and then it was time to scale the ladder and exit the sea.

It was an experience that I would not want to have missed as it is so different from SCUBA, you are not in control and are tied to the shore by your air hose, I do not know how long the hose was but it was obviously sufficient, and you were not neutral as regards buoyancy although you could bounce up off the sea bed only to return.
There was no method of increasing buoyancy in an emergency if you could not get back to the ladder the only option was to jettison the helmet and free assent. In the case of a standard suit diver he can control his input and exit valves to inflate the suit and float to the surface.

I am still hoping for a standard suit dive but being realistic I think my opportunities are long gone.

Scribe:- Phil Davies

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