{"id":4308,"date":"2020-08-20T16:03:47","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T06:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bassstraitmaritimecentre.com.au\/?p=4308"},"modified":"2020-08-20T16:03:47","modified_gmt":"2020-08-20T06:03:47","slug":"diving-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bassstraitmaritimecentre.com.au\/collections\/diving-suit\/","title":{"rendered":"Diving Suit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Viable diving equipment was developed by an Englishman, John Lethbridge, during the 18th<\/sup> century.\u00a0 These old-fashioned diving suits, often made of canvas and rubber as in the case of the Museum\u2019s example, had weighted items such as boots and chest weights to keep the diver submerged. Someone had to be on the surface at all times to maintain the diver\u2019s air supply and to receive or pass on signals via pull-ropes.<\/p>\n

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Diving Suit in Main Gallery<\/em>. Photograph: Kelly Slater.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The boots belonging to the suit at the Maritime Museum are made of leather and brass. Diving boots had two purposes: the first was to protect the diver\u2019s feet and the second was to add weight.\u00a0 Adding weight helped overcome the buoyancy effect of the diving suit, while adding it at the lowest point of the diver\u2019s body helped improve stability underwater.\u00a0 The uppers were generally made of leather and canvas and were made to be renewable.\u00a0 The soles were either cast iron in the case of German boots, or brass or lead in most other cases.<\/p>\n

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Diving Suit Boots<\/em>. Photograph: Jaydeyn Thomas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The two chest weights included with this suit are made of lead.\u00a0 Weights were generally made of lead due to its high density, ease of casting and resilience to corrosion.<\/p>\n

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Dive Weight.<\/em> Photograph Jaydeyn Thomas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The suit\u2019s gloves are of black rubber.\u00a0 Divers\u2019 gloves were considered an important piece of equipment, as even in relatively warm water a diver\u2019s hands can become very cold.\u00a0 There is also the risk of damage to the hands during underwater activities.<\/p>\n

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Diving Suit Glove<\/em>. Photograph: Jaydeyn Thomas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Hand operated air compressors were used in conjunction with diving suits before the advent of scuba tanks. Most compressors were encased in a wooden box with attached hardware.\u00a0 Compressors varied in size depending on how many cylinders they had and how many divers the pump could supply air to during a dive.\u00a0 The compressor with the Maritime Museum\u2019s suit comprises a wooden box, metal wheel and rubber hose.\u00a0 There is an ID plate on the box which identifies it as having been made by Siebe Gorman & Co., Engineers, London.<\/p>\n

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Compressor attached to Diving Suit<\/em>. Photograph: Kelly Slater.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Manufacturer’s Mark<\/em>. Photograph: Jaydeyn Thomas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The diving suit was the focus of one of the #MacroMondays challenges recently on social media. Click here to see the video<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Written by Leah Johnson<\/em><\/p>\n

References:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Maritime Museum file number 198<\/p>\n

Maritime Museum file number 199<\/p>\n

Maritime Museum file number 204<\/p>\n

Maritime Museum file number 205<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Viable diving equipment was developed by an Englishman, John Lethbridge, during the 18th century.\u00a0 These old-fashioned diving suits, often made of canvas and rubber as in the case of the Museum\u2019s example, had weighted items such as boots and chest weights to keep the diver submerged. Someone had to be on the surface at all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3723,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[30],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bassstraitmaritimecentre.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bassstraitmaritimecentre.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bassstraitmaritimecentre.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bassstraitmaritimecentre.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bassstraitmaritimecentre.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bassstraitmaritimecentre.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bassstraitmaritimecentre.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bassstraitmaritimecentre.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bassstraitmaritimecentre.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bassstraitmaritimecentre.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}