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Post by Aquala1 on Mar 2, 2017 9:37:38 GMT -8
John, great story about John Carlson! I wonder how many other drysuit divers had to learn the hard way ? Super cool photo with the helicopter too. I've never been much of an aviation buff, always been more focused on down below than up above, but that's a great looking old bird. All of these vintage photos got me to thinking about a new thread featuring photos of when we began diving. I have a couple from my openwater back in '84 wearing a beaver tail wetsuit, my Jetfins, and chrome Scubapro regs. If it hasn't been done in an old thread, I think I'll start one. If it has, then maybe you guys can direct me, and I'll post what I have in that thread.
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Post by Aquala1 on Mar 2, 2017 9:45:11 GMT -8
David, those links are great! Do you know if all of the ads from the "Skin Diving History" page, are all from old Skin Diver magazines? Also, really cool find in the Dive-master catalog. No telling how much other stuff is out there. Hopefully the newspaper archive will turn up some more. I really appreciate you helping out with this quest. I'm so pleased, Ty, that the images were of interest to you. The pictures from the Skin Diving History website are all, I agree, likely to have been sourced from old Skin Diver magazines, although I can't confirm this because I don't have access to the magazine. The site is a great repository of old diving ads and my only regret is that they aren't always dated so it's hard to use this material to create a timeline for a company or product. I've done an initial search of the newspaper archive and there are certainly a few classified ads from the 1960s posted by Aquala suit owners. I'm hoping that further searches will yield bigger ads from sporting goods stores that stocked Aquala suits from the 1960s onwards. In the meantime, I have created a shared online Bel-Aqua and Aquala folder containing three items: 1. The 1958 Bel-Aqua catalogue I mentioned in my previous message. 2. An Aquala catalogue sent to me in the mid-1980s. You mentioned Aquala surfer's suits and one is featured in the flyer/price list alongside an Aquala "hunter/fisher's full-body waders" suit. 3. An undated lowish-resolution Aquala flyer (below) entitled "Aquala: Front or Waist Entry" that I found somewhere online. Hope they are of interest too. David Great idea creating the folder. I know that the Museum of Diving History has a complete collection of Skin Diver magazines in their library. The next time I'm down that way, I'll need to stop in and do some research. Back in the late '70s and early '80s, when Aquala was owned by George Wilby in North Carolina, he made drysuits for everything, even gold mining. I guess anywhere there's cold water, there's a use for a dry suit.
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Post by DavidRitchieWilson on Mar 2, 2017 10:27:55 GMT -8
When I did a search for George Wilby just now, I came up with this interesting WorthPoint page: Aquala Dry Suit Brochures Stickers 1982 Newspaper George Wilby, our father, bought the company from the widow of the man that made them for the Navy, in California. Remember the term, frogman? This suit is where they got their nickname! Dad bought the company because he needed that type of suit because he was a ball hawk. He went into the ponds at golf courses along the USA east coast, retrieving the lost golf balls. Sometimes he found clubs and even a cart!! People in the diving business started calling him needing a suit, so Aquala was reborn. He moved the company from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to Carthage, North Carolina in 1981. He sold the business about 20 years later, as he was following other interests, and rubber trees were being forced fed making the rubber less than desirable for his purposes. The newspaper article about him was published in the Pilot Newspaper, located in Southern Pines, NC, March 17, 1982, before they narrowed the width of the paper. George Wilby sounds like a bit of a character! A few more names and dates are beginning to emerge now. Shame that the Pilot Newspaper doesn't seem to be archived in the newspaper collection I'm subscribed to, because that March 17, 1982 article in the paper would be worth a look. I'm puzzled by the reference to the sale of the business "20 years later" because that would mean 2001 and my research so far suggests that Aquala was in the hands of John Meehan in Rye, New Hampshire in 1991 and remained so until you took over the reins. You also say that George Wilby owned the company in the late 1970s and 1980s, so a date of sale 10 years after 1981 seems nearer the mark.
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Post by Aquala1 on Mar 4, 2017 6:17:47 GMT -8
David, that's a great find! Yes, George Wilby was quite the character. He's since passed but in the early days of me owning Aquala, I spoke to him several times on the phone. It took a while for me to get him though, because every time I tried to reach him, he would pretend to be someone else just to mess with me. He was a huge conspiracy theorist too, which made talking to him even more fun.
I'll have to look back and see when John Meehan bought it from George, but I bought it from John in November of 2000. The lady that George's daughter spoke of was Rosemary Kizer. The company has a great history, having provided suits for NASA recovery divers as well as NOAA scientists. I just look forward to finding out more.
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Post by SeaRat on Mar 4, 2017 9:51:56 GMT -8
Ty, Take a look at the second photo featured on the NW Diving History website. www.divinghistory.orgThere are a lot of Aquala dry suits in that photo. John
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Post by DavidRitchieWilson on Mar 4, 2017 10:49:30 GMT -8
Some great stories, Ty and John! As promised, I'm now working on a timeline document illustrated with my web findings. What I've managed to glean so far is in a file named "Timeline" in the folder at Bel-Aqua_Aquala. It's a work in progress, so I'll be adding details as they crop up. Please check the document for errors and let me know when/if you find any! Another source of puzzlement was the John Meehan period of Aquala. He seems to have been based at Rye, New Hampshire, but in the late 1990s I'm finding an address for Aquala in Cathedral City, California; was this perhaps John Meehan's manufacturing facility on the west coast, while he lived on the east coast? David
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Post by Aquala1 on Mar 4, 2017 13:24:34 GMT -8
Ty, Take a look at the second photo featured on the NW Diving History website. www.divinghistory.orgThere are a lot of Aquala dry suits in that photo. John I checked out the site, and that's an incredible photo. Awesome that there's a lady in the shot, and checkout the guy in the coveralls protecting his suit. That actually looks like Bill Barada holding the octopus. These are exactly the kinds of photos that I'm looking for. Thanks!
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Post by Aquala1 on Mar 5, 2017 9:06:33 GMT -8
Some great stories, Ty and John! As promised, I'm now working on a timeline document illustrated with my web findings. What I've managed to glean so far is in a file named "Timeline" in the folder at Bel-Aqua_Aquala. It's a work in progress, so I'll be adding details as they crop up. Please check the document for errors and let me know when/if you find any! Another source of puzzlement was the John Meehan period of Aquala. He seems to have been based at Rye, New Hampshire, but in the late 1990s I'm finding an address for Aquala in Cathedral City, California; was this perhaps John Meehan's manufacturing facility on the west coast, while he lived on the east coast? David In the late '90s, John Meehan tried to sell Aquala. Other ventures he was involved with were taking up too much of his time, so a guy in Cathedral City struck a deal with John for John to owner finance the business. He tried to make it work in Cathedral City, but couldn't, so John took the business back and restarted manufacturing in Rye. He still wanted to sell it, and that's when I came along. I was researching drysuits online, because I was becoming interested in extended range/technical diving, and that's when I found the Aquala website. I thought the history was interesting, though what was on the site was minimal and largely inaccurate, and then noticed on the homepage that Aquala was for sale. I inquired, signed a confidentiality agreement, and John sent me the financials. They looked pretty good, so my wife and I booked a trip to Rye to take a look first hand. I liked what I saw, we struck a deal, and I became the new owner. A month later, I flew back up to Rye to inventory and pack the hard assets, and his head craftsman drove it all down to Louisiana. He spent two weeks training us, and we took off running from there.
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Post by Nemo on Mar 14, 2017 13:26:39 GMT -8
Ty, About the comment you received that older Aquala suits are better than the present day ones: I have several of yours and one new / old stock original from back in the 50's that I bought a few years ago from a fairly infamous vintage diver. According to the seller, it was never dived and has lived in the original plastic bag all these years. It even came with the original repair kit. When you went out of business, I got desperate and thought about finding a chemist who could reproduce that original material so I could make a couple Leagues suits for myself but I never actually did it. Comparing the old and new Aqualaply; the old material is thinner. I haven't subjected the old suit to any stress tests (or dived it) but I know for a fact your suits are darn near bulletproof. I had a mannequin come apart at the waist while dressing a Jake in our first green suit and that heavy Leagues SCUBA rig provided the weight to stretch the midsection to extremes. I was amazed that it didn't pop like a rubber band. We got the dummy standing up again and the suit was as if it never happened; still have it and it's in perfect condition. I doubt the older, thinner suit would have survived as well. Also, from what I've been able to determine through research, the suits Disney bought for Leagues seem more like yours than the old suit I have, in terms of material thickness and cut. So, as far as that guy who said the old ones were better; I disagree. Your Aquala suits are the best vintage drysuit on the planet. Good luck with Aquala, brother. No matter what happens with the movie I would still like to buy a few more Leagues suits from you. I still have the collar gaskets. Talk to you soon. Pat
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Post by Aquala1 on Mar 16, 2017 19:51:41 GMT -8
Thanks Pat, while I didn't really go out of business, more like hitting the pause button while I figured everything out (I still did repairs, and sold parts) we try our best to make the best. It is a completely hand made suit, so there's bound to be an error every now and then, but not much.
I have several vintage suits in the archive, and I know exactly what you mean about the differences in materials. Rubber manufacturing techniques have changed since the 1950s, but the material today is super tough, like you said. However every material does have it's limits, and if the limits of the Aquala-ply are exceeded, they're the simplest suits to repair out there.
I didn't realize you had a vintage suit. Do you have any pics, especially of the repair kit?
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squish
Regular Diver
Posts: 20
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Post by squish on Apr 1, 2017 9:13:01 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
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Post by SeaRat on Apr 1, 2017 13:33:12 GMT -8
Ty, I just looked at your website, and it is pretty nice. The Aquala website is nicely laid out. I will be looking for more of my historical Aquala photos (slides) when I have a bit of time. I did find two 1974 dives that I made with the at that time newly-acquired Aquala Dry Suit: Special Prloblems and Ideas:1. Dry suit leaked a bit around face seal prior to beginning of 1st dive of the day. I surfaced, swam ashore & fixed the problem by readjusting the wool hood worn underneith. After this, the suit worked extremely well, keeping me warm through two dives. Wore Neoprene 1/4" pants, wool socks, 1/4" neoprene vest, two wool sweaters & a wool hood underneath. Special Problems and Ideas:...2. New problem with the dry suit. I stay so warm & comfortable with it that I'm somewhat unsympathetic with or unaware of how cold my buddy really is. Again stayed dry on the dive. Used a pleated tie-off with a twist behind it 4 two extra tie-offs. It is unbelievable how much of a difference it makes to be fairly warm & comfortable on a dive like this. John
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Post by Aquala1 on Apr 2, 2017 16:49:41 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
Thanks Squish. Keeping it alive has always been a personal drive of mine, even though there have been a few times over the past 17 years that I've asked myself, "Why am I doing this?" I guess it's just like anything, there are always ups, and always downs, plus you're right...there are people out there that don't really care. At least they don't care about keeping it purely a diving company. They would like to take it in directions that I'll never understand, but to each their own I guess. As long as I own it though, it will always be about diving.
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Post by Aquala1 on Apr 2, 2017 17:07:08 GMT -8
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.
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Post by nikeajax on Apr 2, 2017 17:21:11 GMT -8
"Why am I doing this?" I guess it's just like anything, there are always ups, and always downs, plus you're right...there are people out there that don't really care. At least they don't care about keeping it purely a diving company. They would like to take it in directions that I'll never understand, but to each their own I guess. As long as I own it though, it will always be about diving. BRAVO GOOD SIR! I think too many companies try to diversify too-too-much: they want to control all aspects of everything. Instead of making amazing products for a niche market, they make mediocre products for everyone; much like taking the family sedan to the Indianapolis-500, "Damnit, why can't I go any faster!" JB
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