For more than six decades, spanning from 1905 to the late 1970s, the U.S. Navy’s diving apparatus for deep ocean operations and salvage remained fundamentally unchanged. During this period, the demographic of
For more than six decades, spanning from 1905 to the late 1970s, the U.S. Navy’s diving apparatus for deep ocean operations and salvage remained fundamentally unchanged. During this period, the demographic of navy divers also saw little alteration. However, beginning in the mid-1970s and continuing to the present day, a series of developments initiated a gradual transformation in both areas with significant implications for contemporary Navy diving.
Donna Tobias, standing at 5’5” and weighing 135 pounds, became the first woman to achieve the status of US Navy Deep Sea Diver upon her graduation from Second Class Dive School in Little Creek, VA, on March 14, 1975. She acknowledged that her most persistent challenge was working with the Mk V diving rig, the standard hard-hat apparatus introduced in 1905, itself derived from the Siebe-Gorman Davis Six-Bolt Admiralty Pattern helmet used by the British Navy. The Mk V air dive helmet and suit weighed approximately 200 pounds, with the mixed gas version being roughly 100 pounds heavier. For early women divers such as Tobias, the substantial weight of the equipment, often exceeding their own body weight, posed considerable difficulty. Furthermore, the equipment’s design failed to accommodate female physiques, resulting in issues such as
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