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Post by DavidRitchieWilson on Apr 2, 2017 22:17:06 GMT -8
Ty,
Thank you for keeping Aquala alive and for keeping it out of the hands of those who don't give a darn. I will support Aquala in any way I can.
I wish you well!
Squish
I echo those sentiments, Squish. John, those log entries are great and I hope you can find more vintage pics of you in your suit. The fact that you know you bought your suit in '74 also helps me narrow down when Aquala started using the large diamond logo on the suits. It's been difficult to nail that down but at least I know that it was being used '74. Glad you like the site, but it was built in '02 and it's time for a change. A new site will be built, but I'm waiting on a fresh order of Aquala-ply to arrive so I can build some new suits for the website photo shoot. We'll do a location shoot around Laguna, both above and below water, so the whole site will have a very California feel to it. Taking Aquala back to it's roots. I applaud the idea of "taking Aquala back to its roots", Ty. Will that include continuation of the production of Aquala front-entry historical suits? David
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Post by Aquala1 on Apr 3, 2017 8:10:40 GMT -8
DRW, we'll always have front entry suits in the line. In addition to that, I'll have a '70s styled zippered suit with vintage style valves, and period correct wrist and neck seal. The final suit in the line will be a "retro suit", built like a vintage suit, but with polymer sealed interior seams, modern seals, and modern valves. All drysuits will be in classic Aquala-ply "water green", unless demand dictates that I put yellow back in. We'll see...
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Post by SeaRat on Apr 10, 2017 13:47:11 GMT -8
Ty, I found another photo from Clear Lake, one I've been looking for recently because I really like the composition. This again was taken by Bruce Higgins of me in the Aquala dry suit. It is of the "retro suit" when it was not "retro." The photo was taken by Bruce in 1974, I think, using my camera. The water conditions were great with "Extreme clarity (visibility ~100-150 feet), Altitude 3001 feet, water temperature ~41-45 degrees F. This photo was taken in a shallower part of the lake, with some downed trees in the water. In the deeper part of the lake, a couple of small boats had been lost over the years, and were on the bottom. The Aquala suit allowed me to dive here in comfort. Note that I had place a short hose in the back to allow manual inflation. That, I found, was easier than trying to equalize the suit through the mask skirt. Because the hood is attached, any air that goes into the suit from the diver's mask would equalize the suit and prevent suit squeeze. But the trick was to use a mask that could be fitted with the skirt under the hood's seal, and then snort air through the mask into the suit. I found this difficult, especially since I liked my Scubapro tri-view mask with a double seal on it, and so decided on a manual inflation system. The mask inflation system with the skirt under the hood works best with the old oval masks that have a single edge seal. By the way, I'm using the Trieste II regulator that I still use today in these photos. And, that is an eighty cubic foot steel cylinder that I'm using; it's simple a bit longer than a standard steel 72. John
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Post by Aquala1 on Apr 11, 2017 13:30:13 GMT -8
John, those images are incredibly awesome! Thanks for digging those up.
When you bought your suit, how did you buy it? Did you purchase through a catalog, or from a dive shop?
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Post by SeaRat on Apr 11, 2017 14:56:18 GMT -8
Ty, I got them through the New England Divers catalog. I actually still have that catalog too. Here is the cover and your ad. As you can see, I have the name, Frank English, at the top, and the H.D.--$132, L,W,--$88. I was in college at the time, and so I think I got the L.W. version, which I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) means "light weight" rather than "heavy duty." The local dive shop did not carry the Aquala dry suit, and I think was rather unresponsive to my inquiry. At that time, they were trying to sell the UniSuit to people for dry suit diving. John
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Post by Aquala1 on Apr 13, 2017 6:14:33 GMT -8
John, it looks like you've never thrown away a thing, and that's great!
The reason I was asking about how you ordered, is because I was wanting to see if you remembered the options or styles that were available at the time. I'm trying to pin-point when the waterproof zipper and valves were first introduced to the line, as well as where Aquala was located in the early '70s. So the catalog is from 1970, but did you order it then, or a few years later?
The HD and LW designation are exactly what you thought. HD for the thicker .062" material, and the .031" thick material for the suit you bought. That's a HD suit pictured, as I can tell by the longer, commercial style cuffs.
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Post by DavidRitchieWilson on Apr 13, 2017 7:52:53 GMT -8
I'm trying to pin-point when the waterproof zipper and valves were first introduced to the line, as well as where Aquala was located in the early '70s. Ty: On the second point, the whereabouts of Aquala in the early 1970s: 25 April 1968: According to businessfilings.sos.ca.gov/frmDetail.asp?CorpID=00544693, AQUALA, INC. (Company Number C0544693) was first registered with the address 223 RICHMOND ST., EL SEGUNDO, CA 90245 on April 25, 1968. 11 June 1975: The Trouble Shooter column on page 36 of the June 11, 1975 edition of the "Asbury Park Press" contains the following: The direct link to the page is www.newspapers.com/image/145725656/, but you need a subscription to Newspapers.com to see it at the correct resolution. This appears to confirm that Aquala was still at its El Segundo, CA address, in 1975. I presume the company remained there until 1979, when the company was bought by George Wilby and moved to Florida. According to my records, Aquala Inc was registered on 18 January 1979 in the State of Florida with the registration number 608831. The exact address of the company AQUALA, INC. headquarters was 6240 NW 14TH CT, SUNRISE, FL, 33313. The company’s President was George Wilby, 6240 NW 14TH CT, SUNRISE, FL. David Postscript. Here is the Aquala page from the 1973 edition of the Mar-vel (M & E Marine Supply Co, Camden, NJ) Catalogue:
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Post by DavidRitchieWilson on Apr 14, 2017 2:31:09 GMT -8
I'm trying to pin-point when the waterproof zipper and valves were first introduced to the line This I still can't answer concerning the diver model, but I note from my copy of a 1983 Aquala catalogue that the Surfer version of the suit came with a front zipper: George Wilby had moved Aquala to Carthage, NC, in 1982. The next owner, John Meehan, who moved Aquala to Rye, NH, can be seen in 1991 posing below in the zippered Aquala Surfer model, still with its attached gloves but now in the more familiar Aquala green hue, in 1992: Returning to the valve and zipper diver model, I found the following images somewhere online but sadly they don't come with a date so it's not possible to establish a chronology:
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Post by Aquala1 on Apr 14, 2017 19:37:15 GMT -8
DRW, once again...great information. After Aquala left the W. 54th address in South Central LA, it moved to El Segundo, but I don't know in what year. There were two locations in El Segundo, and I'll have to find the addresses in my archive file when I'm back at the office. After El Segundo, it moved to Gardena, California before Wilby took it to Florida.
I have a surfing catalog from March of '74, and it shows a zippered option. The Marvel and the NE Divers catalogs shed some light, but I wonder if there possibly was a zipper offered by Aquala, but that Marvel and NE Divers didn't stock it. Probably not, but I wish I knew for sure.
The photos of the zippered and valved diving suits are from the Wilby era, as the girl is Wilby's daughter. I have some black and white images and negatives from that photo shoot which are pretty cool.
That's definitely John Meehan with the surf board and probably the funniest/craziest guy you'd ever meet. He calls everyone "Jim", and is the kind of guy that got his drivers license photo taken wearing "Bubba" teeth.
Aquala's surf history is pretty interesting if someone is into that. The surf models are actually cut from a different set of patterns. Peter Pan (Panagiotis) who is a famous New England surfer from back in the day, was a big advocate of Aquala. He even had Aquala make private label suits for his Watershed surf shop in Rhode Island.
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Post by SeaRat on Apr 17, 2017 16:07:31 GMT -8
Ty, I found this photograph that I apparently copied in the 1980s or 1990s from a book somewhere, and thought you'd like to see it. John
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Post by Aquala1 on Apr 17, 2017 16:51:17 GMT -8
Ty, I found this photograph that I apparently copied in the 1980s or 1990s from a book somewhere, and thought you'd like to see it. John That's awesome John...love the old color photos! Any chance you remember the book?
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Post by SeaRat on Apr 17, 2017 17:45:53 GMT -8
Ty,
It's probably in my library somewhere, but it will be a discovery process to figure out where.
John
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Post by SeaRat on Apr 25, 2017 8:17:18 GMT -8
Well, I cannot find that book. But I did find another, "The Young Sportsman's Guide to SKIN DIVING," by Joan and Van Ellman, Thomas Nelson & Sons, New York, 1961. It shows Jim Thorne diving in the Antarctic using what looks like an Aquala dry suit, and the text states he was diving to depths of 200 feet amongst the ice flows. I just read the text of the book again, and it states that Thorne wore "an ordinary wet suit" in the Antarctic for these dives. The photo clearly shows a diver in a dry suit like the Aquala dry suit though. I have just read parts of the chapter of Jim Thorne's book, Occupation Adventure,* the chapter "The Ice Man Cometh," and confirmed that this is a dry suit (probably Aquala) and that the dives were made in Lake Geneva, in Wisconsin. They were testing products, including a product called Aqua-Therm which was supposed to keep areas of the surface ice-free, and a product called "Adventure Dart," which was a dart with an explosive that could be placed on the underside of the ice and blow an escape hole through the ice. Jim Thorne, it his book mentioned above, has this same photo, correctly identifying it as being shot at Lake Geneva. John *Thorne, Jim, "The Ice Man Cometh," Occupation Adventure, The Adventurer's Club, London, 1961, pages 79-93.
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Post by DavidRitchieWilson on Apr 25, 2017 14:59:40 GMT -8
Thanks, John! I too have a first-edition copy of the Joan and Van Ellman title. A couple more pictures from me. 1. Verne E. Peckham (below) wore a Bel-Aqua / Aquala suit when conducting a series of scuba dives under the McMurdo sea ice in the Antarctic during the 1961/1962 season: Peckham’s dive gear included a Bel-Aqua/Aquala dry suit with attached gloves, and a neoprene wetsuit, wool mittens, and wool sweater worn as undergarments for warmth. See: www.peterbrueggeman.com/uw/DivingUnderAntarcticIceHistory.pdf. Page 11. 2. Undated photograph taken by Eric Hanauer, a celebrated underwater photographer, and used as an illustration on page 15 of the book Drysuit Diving: A guide to diving dry written by Steve Barsky, Dick Long and Bob Stinton. San Diego, CA: Watersport Publishing Inc, 1992: David
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Post by SeaRat on Apr 26, 2017 21:50:32 GMT -8
Ty, I found this in Fred Roberts' book, Basic Scuba. Note the Aquala dry suit with attached gloves, and the mask under the face seal for preventing a suit squeeze. John
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