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Someone wrote:- > Finally, I know that some of you will KILL me for my past but all I can say, > with the utmost of respect is... who taught Jacques Cousteau to dive?... Marc Dufour <emdx@ac*.ne*> replied (Subject: Re: BCD's, Information, Christmas...):- > My! It was Commandant Yves Leprieur who taught Cousteau how to dive, of > course! Le Prieur invented a constant-flow air scuba in the 1930's and started a scuba diving club using it; but I haven't heard of Cousteau being in that club, from what I read in Cousteau's book `The Silent World'. Later when the French fleet were in Toulon during the 1939-1945 war, when Cousteau needed scuba, he didn't have access to Le Prieur sets, had two oxygen convulsions trying rebreathers, and, after a dreadful experience hacksawing through a wire rope by snorkelling down for each two saw-strokes, at last by chance heard of demand regulators from Gagnan (who had invented them to regulate flow from bladders of coal-gas carried on car roofs as fuel). For that matter, `The Silent World' makes no mention of Commeinhes, who in 1939 invented an aqualung whose demand regulator was in a big box between the two cylinders. For that matter, who trained Hans Hass? Or many of the first British and USA sport aqualung divers? They just dived and worked out the risks and procedures as they went along, and so started the well-known sport diving organizations and clubs. (P.S. When did people realise what nitrogen narcosis was? I wonder how many old-type hardhat naval or commercial divers were disciplined or punished for irresponsible behaviour or disobedience at depth before officialdom realized what nitrogen narcosis was?)
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