Sealab

by Ben Hellwarth

  197 didn’t even look like Berry: Ibid.

  197 clung to this notion: Ibid.

  197 “There is a mystery”: Ibid.

  198 burial at Wacahoota: “Williston High Graduate Dies in Sealab Experiment,” Williston (Fla.) Sun, Feb. 20, 1969, p. 1; Mary Cannon, interview, Jan. 23, 2002.

  198 raised by his grandmother: Mary Lou Cannon, interview, Jan. 23, 2002.

  198 simple gray headstone: Alachua Genealogical Society’s Virtual Cemetery Project, Wacahoota Baptist Church Cemetery, www.usgennet.org/usa/fl/county/alachua/ACGS/WacahootaB/index.html.

  198 dozens of lobsters: Richard Cooper, interview during three-day Sealab reunion, Panama City, Fla., March 13, 2005; Barth, Sea Dwellers, pp. 125, 137.

  198 improvise a way to raise Sealab: “Record of Proceedings,” pp. 31–33; Craven, The Silent War, pp. 156–59.

  199 flew off to the Virgin Islands: Bond, “Sealab III Chronicle,” p. 106; Papa Topside, p. 177; Bond, Assistant for Medical Effects, Deep Submergence Systems Project, “Trip Report, Tektite Operation,” March 26, 1969 (twenty-one pages, in author’s possession).

  199 force the postponement: “Navy Curbs Sealab for Fiscal Year,” (San Diego) Evening Tribune, Sept. 23, 1969, p. B1; “Sealab III Victim of Navy Economy,” San Diego Union, Sept. 24, 1969, p. B1; “Sealab 3 Is Shelved,” New York Times, Sept. 24, 1969, p. 92.

  199 program had been canceled: Bob Corbett, “Sealab III Quietly ‘Buried,’” (San Diego) Evening Tribune, Dec. 16, 1970, p. C1; “Submergence Project Office Discontinued,” San Diego Union, Oct. 6, 1970, p. B2.

  199 died with Berry Cannon: Barth, Sea Dwellers, p. 138.

  199 Barth was dismayed: Ibid.

  199 with scant explanation: Ibid.

  199 Death was always a possibility: Ibid.

  CHAPTER 15: THE OIL PATCH

  In addition to books and other documentary sources about oil field diving, some of which are cited below, personal interviews added immeasurably to the material in this chapter, including those that took place during the sixteenth annual divers’ reunion at Dick Ransome’s roadside bar in Bush, La., a day-long event on March 11, 2007, attended by several dozen old-time oil field divers. Key interviews are cited below, but a number of others whose names are for the most part not specifically cited were also interviewed at various times, including: Harry Connelly, Charles Coggeshall, Harry Lee Coon, Jack Horning, Jack Reedy, Don Risk, John Roat, R. J. Steckel, Bob Tallant, Geoff Thielst, and William Winters. The insights and experiences they shared were invaluable, and information largely attributable to their collective input is cited below as “oil field diver interviews.” Harry Connelly shared not just his personal experience but his prized collection of Undercurrents, a short-lived and now hard-to-find magazine that provided a further window on the working lives of divers in the offshore industry, circa 1970. Some of the above-named divers worked as supervisors and superintendents who oversaw diving operations. Many, but not all, worked primarily for Taylor Diving & Salvage, a central focus of this chapter. A decidedly non-Taylor perspective came from others, most notably R. Lad Handelman, an industry icon, who could speak with equal authority as a onetime scrappy California abalone diver and as a cofounder and top executive of several influential diving companies, including one of the biggest, Oceaneering International. Author interviews with Handelman include those taped at his home in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Oct. 6, 1998, and Sept. 28, 2005. As in the earlier chapters, documentary sources are cited whenever possible, even when similar information came from interviews, to direct the interested reader or researcher to the most readily accessible source. Especially noteworthy is Christopher Swann’s recently published book, cited below. Its 850 pages chronicle the evolution of the offshore industry like no other.

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  200 ex-Navy diver and medic: Alan “Doc” Helvey, who is singled out in this chapter, related his experiences by telephone beginning with a pair of taped interviews on April 9 and May 29, 2007. He answered another round of questions during several taped follow-up interviews on Feb. 4, Feb. 12, and April 9, 2009. Information drawn from these interviews is cited below as “Helvey, interviews.”

  200 growing legion of commercial divers: Joseph A. Pratt, Tyler Priest, and Christopher J. Castaneda, Offshore Pioneers: Brown & Root and the History of Offshore Oil and Gas (Houston, Tex.: Gulf Publishing, 1997), p. 153; D. H. Elliott and P. B. Bennett, “Underwater Accidents,” in The Physiology and Medicine of Diving, Peter B. Bennett and David H. Elliott, eds., 4th ed. (London: W. B. Saunders, 1993), p. 239.

  200 could earn in a day: Oil field diver interviews; Christopher Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving: An Industrial Adventure (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Oceanaut Press, 2007), pp. 257, 576.

  201 oil field called the Forties: Pratt et al., Offshore Pioneers, p. 239.

  201 a first for the United Kingdom sector: Ibid.

  201 yielded big-money contracts: Ibid., 226–27, 248–49, 263; Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, pp. 363, 368, 412.

  201 humble origins: Pratt et al., Offshore Pioneers, p. 139.

  201 one of the largest and most influential: Ibid., p. 155; Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, p. 566.

  201 after the North Sea discoveries: Hans Veldman and George Lagers, 50 Years Offshore (Delft, Netherlands: Foundation for Offshore Studies, 1997), pp. 96, 113, 126, 136.

  201 major player in the construction field: Pratt et al., Offshore Pioneers, pp. 45, 53, 65, 66.

  201 laying pipeline at sea: Ibid., pp. 137, 140, 258.

  201 looked like car engines perched: Veldman and Lagers, 50 Years Offshore, pp. 128, 134–35, 164.

  201 crisscrossed with pipelines: Ibid., p. 178; Oilfield diver interviews.

  201 an estimated fifteen thousand miles: Offshore Platforms and Pipelining (Tulsa, Okla.: Petroleum Publishing Company, 1976), p. 99; Pratt et al., Offshore Pioneers, p. 65.

  202 his first experience as a saturation diver: Helvey, interviews.

  202 age of thirty-five: Gil T. Webre, “Divers Are Constructors for Offshore Oil Industry” (New Orleans) Times-Picayune, Jan. 23, 1976.

  202 study and chase girls: Helvey, interviews.

  202 their next round of sea floor tasks: Ibid.

  202 pipe was still attached: Ibid.

  202 a depth of 320 feet: Helvey, interviews.

  202 oil patch diver’s brand of useful work: Oil field diver interviews; Nicholas B. Zinkowski, Commercial Oil-Field Diving (Cambridge, Md.: Cornell Maritime Press, 1971), pp. 198, 207, 226–41.

  203 With sledgehammers and axes: Helvey, interviews; Zinkowski, Commercial Oil-Field Diving, pp. 152, 156–60, 164.

  203 coordinating the procedures with topside: Zinkowski, Commercial Oil-Field Diving, pp. 232–38; Oil field diver interviews.

  203 looked like the space helmets: Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, pp. 229–34.

  204 to and from his helmet: Helvey, interviews; Helvey, e-mails to author, Feb. 18 and July 9, 2009.

  204 cry for help over the intercom: Helvey, interviews; “North Sea rescue effort fails 320 ft. down,” The Times (London), Aug. 29, 1973, p. 2.

  204 strained against the combined weight: Helvey, interviews.

  204 even after rigorous lab tests: Wallace, interview, Biloxi, Miss., March 12, 2007.

  204 wondering whether he should ever: Helvey, interviews.

  204 two reported in the North Sea: Elliott and Bennett, “Underwater Accidents,” in The Physiology and Medicine of Diving, 4th ed., p. 239; David Blundy, “Pressures That Kill the Men Who Dive for Britain’s Oil,” The Sunday Times (London), June 23, 1974, p. 3.

  204 coal miners or construction workers: Elliott and Bennett, “Underwater Accidents,” in The Physiology and Medicine of Diving, 4th ed., p. 239; M. E. Bradley, M.D., “Commercial Diving Fatalities,” Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, August 1984, p. 722.

  205 he would have shaken his head: Helvey, interviews.

  205 nature of the thousand-foot: Ibid.; D. Michael Hughes,
“Many Factors Affect Deepwater Dives,” Offshore, August 1973, p. 58.

  205 tapped on land in 1859: Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 27.

  205 shorelines of Southern California: Veldman and Lagers, 50 Years Offshore, pp. 13–16; Pratt et al., Offshore Pioneers, p. 159.

  205 stand-alone platforms began to appear: Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, pp. 8–11.

  205 push the conventional depth limits: Ibid., p. 61.

  205 The use of helium: Lad Handelman, “Where Did the Major Diving Companies of Today Originate?,” UnderWater, May/June 2000, pp. 68–69.

  205 revamped decompression tables: Ibid.

  205 A few companies continued to push: Donald M. Taylor, “Bounce Diving in 450-600-ft Water Depths and Deeper,” Ocean Industry, March 1974, pp. 35–37.

  206 case to be made for this new method: Hughes, “Many Factors Affect Deepwater Dives,” p. 64.

  206 first commercial saturation dives: James W. Miller and Ian G. Koblick, Living and Working in the Sea, 2nd ed. (Plymouth, Vt.: Five Corners, 1995), p. 72.

  206 only a few close calls: Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, p. 241.

  206 two years and cost a lot more: Miller and Koblick, Living and Working in the Sea, p. 72.

  206 Westinghouse’s initial enthusiasm: “In the Absence of Federal Aid, Industry Takes the Initiative,” Marine Engineering/Log, July 1967, p. 36.

  206 first commercial saturation dives at sea: Miller and Koblick, Living and Working in the Sea, pp. 74–75.

  206 clear out the tangle of debris: Ibid.

  206 forty-five miles off Grand Isle: “Prolonged Submergence Opens Door to Deeper Dives,” Marine Engineering/Log, July 1967, pp. 38–39.

  207 a new company, Ocean Systems Inc.: Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, p. 169.

  207 transformed his team: M. C. Link, Windows in the Sea, pp. 82, 84; Van Hoek with M. C. Link, From Sky to Sea, pp. 283, 291.

  207 former Submersible Portable Inflatable Dwelling participants: M. C. Link, Windows in the Sea, p. 84.

  207 moved to a vacant Linde building: Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, p. 170.

  207 Sténuit serving as one of the subjects: Ibid.

  207 his old friend E. C. Stephan: M. C. Link, Windows in the Sea, p. 84.

  207 refused to take a regular desk job: Ibid., p. 82.

  208 he had quit school: Wallace, interview, June 1, 2003.

  208 the most significant of his life: Ibid.

  208 passed along findings about methods: Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, p. 245.

  208 consultants to Taylor Diving: Ibid., pp. 245, 252; Robert D. Workman, M.D., “Deep Water Diving Calls for Medical and Physiological Solutions to Problems,” Offshore, August 1973, p. 48; Wallace, interviews, Nov. 15, 2006, and May 21, 2007.

  208 master diver who had cofounded Taylor: Pratt et al., Offshore Pioneers, pp. 138–39; Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, p. 30.

  209 president and mainstay: Pratt et al., Offshore Pioneers, pp. 146, 155.

  209 could plainly see its potential: Wallace, interview, March 12, 2007; Pratt et al., Offshore Pioneers, pp. 142, 145–47; Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, pp. 245–49.

  209 Brown & Root turned to Taylor: Pratt et al., Offshore Pioneers, pp. 137, 140, 155.

  209 playing piano at Lafitte’s: Ibid., p. 140.

  209 popping up along the Gulf Coast: Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, p. 26.

  209 a hundred of these smaller companies: Ken Wallace, “Commercial Diving—Offshore Made It; It’s Making Offshore,” Oil and Gas Journal, March 4, 1974, p. 71.

  209 on Lake Pontchartrain: Pratt et al., Offshore Pioneers, p. 139.

  209 installed a pressure chamber: Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, p. 34.

  209 sued Westinghouse: Ibid., p. 244; Wallace, interview, May 21, 2007.

  209 words like “proprietary”: Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, 246.

  210 Gulf of Mexico in the summer of 1967: Ibid.; Pratt et al., Offshore Pioneers, p. 144.

  210 multimillion-dollar pressure complex: “Industrial Hydrospace Research Center,” Undercurrents, February 1970, pp. 14–16; Pratt et al., Offshore Pioneers, p. 147.

  210 took over as full-time head: Pratt et al., Offshore Pioneers, p. 146; Workman résumé (copy in author’s possession).

  210 take the reins from Banjavich: Robert D. Workman, M.D. to Wallace, March 16, 1976; James E. Fitzmorris Jr., Lt. Governor, State of Louisiana to Wallace, April 11, 1975 (copies in author’s possession).

  210 trained in civilian diving schools: Wallace, “Commercial Diving—Offshore Made It,” p. 77.

  210 Clannish tensions: Oil field diver interviews; Ken Wallace, “Commercial Diving: There Is a Difference,” UnderWater, Summer 1997, p. 37.

  210 biggest providers of underwater manpower: Stan Luxenberg, “Deep Beneath the Sea, a New Industry Grows,” New York Times, Feb. 27, 1977, Section 3, p. 4; Wallace, “Commercial Diving—Offshore Made It,” p. 71; Larry L. Booda, “Diving Becoming Big Business,” UnderSea Technology, Sept. 1968, p. 32.

  210 seized an opportunity to offer: Henri Germain Delauze, interviews, Marseille, France, Nov. 2 and 3, 2004.

  211 personality conflicts developed: Ibid.

  211 stuck by their famed boss: Interviews in France with three longtime members of the Cousteau team: Jean Alinat, Nice, Oct. 24, 2004; André Laban, Juan-les-Pins, Oct. 27 and 31, 2004; Claude Wesly, Marseille, Nov. 2, 2004.

  211 left behind at the office: Delauze, interviews, Nov. 2 and 3, 2004.

  211 construction of a highway tunnel: Ibid.; Alain Dunoyer de Segonzac, Un conquérant sous la mer (Paris: Editions Buchet/Chastel, 1992), pp. 44–45.

  211 Fulbright scholarship: Delauze, interviews, Nov. 2 & 3, 2004; Dunoyer de Segonzac, Un conquérant sous la mer, p. 47.

  211 met again with Cousteau: Delauze, interviews, Nov. 2 & 3, 2004; Dunoyer de Segonzac, Un conquérant sous la mer, p. 58.

  211 renting a couple of small offices: Delauze, interviews, Nov. 2 and 3, 2004. Dunoyer de Segonzac, Un conquérant sous la mer, p. 57.

  211 headquarters for Delauze’s company: Yves Baix, ed., “Comex—The Conquest of the Ocean Depths,” Océans magazine (Marseille), special issue commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Comex, trans. John Kingsford (1981?).

  211 Delauze would take diving to depths: Ibid., p. 61.

  211 notably Dr. Xavier Fructus: Delauze and Bernard Gardette, scientific director, who began his career at Comex working under Fructus, at Comex, Marseille, Oct. 29, 2004; Dunoyer de Segonzac, Un conquérant sous la mer, pp. 83–85.

  212 had its own test chamber: “COMEX Hyperbaric Experimental Centre, 1965–2000, 36 Years of Deep Diving Development, from Helium to Hydrogen,” an in-house pamphlet that catalogues the highlights of company research, April 12, 2001.

  212 Navy made its first thousand-foot: J. K. Summit and J. W. Kulig, “Saturation Dives, with Excursions, for the Development of a Decompression Schedule for Use During Sealab III,” U.S. Navy Experimental Diving Unit Research Report, no. 9-70, 1970.

  212 Navy with scientists at Duke: P. B. Bennett, “The High Pressure Nervous Syndrome: Man,” in The Physiology and Medicine of Diving and Compressed Air Work, 2nd ed., p. 249.

  212 “helium tremors”: Ibid., p. 248; Bennett, taped interview, June 8, 2009.

  212 starting point for studies: Bennett, “The High Pressure Nervous Syndrome: Man,” in The Physiology and Medicine of Diving and Compressed Air Work, 2nd ed., p. 249.

  212 hyperbaric researcher Ralph Brauer: Baix, ed., “Comex,” p. 34; R. W. Brauer, “High Pressure Nervous Syndrome: Animals,” in The Physiology and Medicine of Diving and Compressed Air Work, 2nd ed., p. 231.

  212 Brauer began to experience: Dr. X. Fructus and Dr. P. Fructus, “Technical Memorandum—Six very deep experimental dives,” a collaboration of the Centre Experimental Hyperbare at Marseille with the Wrightsville Marine Bio-Medical Labor
atory, Wilmington, N.C., n.d., pp. 19–20; Delauze, interview, Nov. 3, 2004.

  213 sleepiness, dizziness, nausea: P. B. Bennett and J. C. Rostain, “The High Pressure Nervous Syndrome,” in The Physiology and Medicine of Diving, 4th ed., p. 194.

  213 causing a hyperexcitability: Bennett, interview, June 8, 2009.

  213 Delauze did not exhibit: Delauze, interview, Nov. 3, 2004.

  213 Scientists debated what to call: Bennett, interview, June 8, 2009.

  213 largely unpredictable: Ibid.

  213 tried out various forms: Bennett and Rostain, “The High Pressure Nervous Syndrome,” in The Physiology and Medicine of Diving, 4th ed., pp. 212–18.

  213 Cannon would not yet have been exposed: Bennett, interview, June 8, 2009.

  213 Slowing the rate of pressurization: Bennett and Rostain, “The High Pressure Nervous Syndrome,” in The Physiology and Medicine of Diving, 4th ed., pp. 212–18.

  214 to 610 meters: Ibid., pp. 198, 211.

  214 Rolex advertisements: UnderSea Technology, December 1975, back cover.

  214 depth of sixteen hundred feet: Bennett and Rostain, “The High Pressure Nervous Syndrome,” in The Physiology and Medicine of Diving, 4th ed., p. 198.

  214 showed normal arterial gases: Ibid., p. 218.

  214 another mysterious neural effect: Bennett, taped interview, April 29, 2009.

  214 experiments like this one continued: Ibid.; Bennett and Rostain, “The High Pressure Nervous Syndrome,” in The Physiology and Medicine of Diving, 4th ed., pp. 199–208.

  215 produced and tested the first one: Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, pp. 261–62.

  215 Taylor Diving was right behind: Robert Steven, “Hyperbaric Welding Comes of Age,” Offshore, August 1979, p. 84.

  215 underwater welding habitats: Ibid.; Oil field diver interviews; Pratt et al., Offshore Pioneers, pp. 148–50, 155; Swann, “The Development of Hyperbaric Pipeline Welding,” in The History of Oilfield Diving, p. 261; Zinkowski, Commercial Oil-Field Diving, pp. 341–47; Baix, ed., “Comex,” p. 55; “Taylor Diving Hyperbaric Welding,” brochure, n.d. (in author’s possession).

  215 divers who had trained as welders: Swann, The History of Oilfield Diving, p. 376; Wallace, interview, March 12, 2007.