Frédéric Dumas
Frédéric Dumas (born January 14, 1913 in Albi ; † July 26, 1991 in Toulon ) became one of the pioneers of modern diving in Europe as a member of the Trois Mousquemers group , together with Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Philippe Tailliez . As enthusiastic divers, this group of friends developed the first pressure reducer for diving cylinders in collaboration with the engineer Émile Gagnan .
Life
At the age of six he moved with his parents to Sanary-sur-Mer in the bay of Portissol . At the age of 23 he first came into contact with diving in 1936 through contact with a Canadian who used special Fernez glasses to see under water. From this experience Dumas developed the single-glass diving mask .
While diving on the Île des Embiez in 1937, he met Philippe Tailliez, who at that time was already using the snorkel as a diving aid. He introduced Dumas to his friend Jacques-Yves Cousteau, which was the hour of birth of the famous diving trio, which made the first underwater films in the following time. During the Vichy period , Par dix-huit mètres de fond (1942) and Épaves (1943), the first film made with the regulator , were made.
Dumas was instrumental in the rescue of the bathyscaphe FNRS-2 from Jacques Piccard , involved in his 1949 expedition off Dakar. The submersible was in distress and its rescue later enabled the French Navy to develop the FNRS-3 .
He was the first person to dive 62 m deep with a regulator (October 17, 1943) and was the first diver to come into contact with decompression sickness . Around 1950 he invented the buoyancy compensator .
Web links
- French
- English
- Scuba Diving Hall of Fame
- A Bronze Age Shipwreck (1961) by George F. Bass about the dives to a Bronze Age shipwreck at Cape Gelidonia
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Dumas, Frédéric |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French diver |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 14, 1913 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Albi |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 26, 1991 |
| Place of death | Toulon |