KidZone

This time KidZone is all about WEIRD AND WONDERFUL DIVING SUIT INVENTIONS.

For centuries people have tried to design machines and suits for divers. They were mostly like underwater suits of armour. They protected the diver from the pressure of the water outside the suit so they were a bit like a man-shaped submarines.

They have been called all sorts of names like ‘Winnie the Pooh Suits’ (because of their large heads), ‘Iron Dukes’, ‘Iron Men’, ‘Armoured Diving Suits’, ‘Articulated Diving Suits’ and even ‘Deep Sea Diving Robots’. Now we tend to call them Atmospheric Diving Suits because the pressure inside the suit is the same as the ‘normal’ air pressure that we live under everyday (we call that ‘1-atmosphere’).

Over 120 years later another Englishman, W H Taylor, designed the first armoured suit with real joints. Although it was not a true Atmospheric diving suit it was pretty close. Mr Taylor patented the suit but it was never built.

Then in 1882 two French brothers, Alphonse and Theodore Carmagnolle patented an amazing metal suit with ball joints at the shoulders, elbows and knees. It had lots of eye holes all over the head so that the diver could look out in almost any direction. It was extremely heavy. Unfortunately it never worked properly. But the suit has survived and is on display in the National Navy museum in Paris.

Then in 1906, a French engineer M de Pluvy built and Atmospheric Diving Suit that did not need a supply of air from the surface. It contained chemicals that renewed the oxygen in the air in the suit. It looks quite awkward to use but Mr de Pluvy said he made several dives in this suit going down as far as 90m (300 ft).

The next year another American Harry L Bowdoin patented a very complicated suit with 18 joints – even one for each thumb. It had 4 windows in the head and it even had a lamp on the chest. Unfortunately we do not know if it was ever built.

In the same year, 1915, a German company, Neufeldt and Kuhnke built two Atmospheric Diving Suits. In Germany they were known as ‘Panzertaucher’ (Armoured diver). Although the joints tended to leak and seize the deeper it went, it was used on several deep water dives but only for observing what was happening underwater. It became famous when it was used to salvage gold and silver bullion from the wreck of the SS Egypt.

In the early 20th century many ADS designs were patented but all had problems with the joints until Joseph S Peress patented the first spherical type joint that used fluid to equalise pressure. His first suit was not successful (1925) but his next one (1932) worked very well and became known as ‘Tritonia’, It is now often referred to as ‘Jim 1’ – named after the diver who tested it underwater – Jim Jarrett.

In 1971, a British suit, the JIM suit was completed. It was named ‘Jim’ in honour of Jim Jarrett the test diver of the first truly successful Atmospheric Diving suit made by Peress in 1932. In 1976 it set a record for the longest working dive below 150m (490ft) lasting almost 6 hours at 276m (905ft). Jim had no propellers and so as subsea walkways were gradually removed from oil platforms, it was replaced by WASP and the Newtsuit which could ‘fly’ through the water using propellers.