Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1915-04-12
HOW DRELLISHAK
SET WORLD MARK
FOR DEEP Diving

Chief Gunners Nate :. j. Drelli.
shak. now here with the crew OF divers
, Oh the l.. s s Maryland. holds the
! worlds record in deep-sea diving
| The Technical World Magazine for
this month tells how h" won il, as
! follows.
A few weeks ago chief Gunner'S
! Nate 5, J. Drellishak OF the United
States navy took a promenade on the
bottom OF the sea. 80 feet below the
surface BY 50 doing, he established
a new worlds record for deep sea
diving in an ordinary flexible rlbber
diving suit, lettering by 10 feet the
previous worlds record held for seven
years by the British navy.
All this was made possible by means
OF new power driven air compressor
invented after years OF experiment by
Gunner George D. StilSOn of the Unit
ed States navy. BY means of this
and an improved reducing valve,
Diver Drellishak was able to walk
about on the sea bottom 275 feet I'm.
der water for 10 minutes, and he says
he could have remainded down twice
that length Of time had he been allow
ed to do so.
The great difficulty TO be overcome
in performing such a feat is the fact
that. at that depth, the divers body
must sustain a pressure Of over 800
lrOunds to the square inch. The usual
practise in making dives at such
depths has been to use diving bells,
or one Of the "armOred" diving suits
which are being invented in great
numbers; but Diver Drellishak went
down in an ordinary navy rubber div
ing suit. inflated with compressed air
rs a protection against water pres
sure.
This method of protection requires
elaborate apparatus for controlling the
air pressure in the suit. keeping it
just sufficient to withstand the water
pressure from outside the suit. There
should be no excess, since the diver
must breathe the compressed air, in
order that the pressure within his
body be the same IS that surrounding
him. The recent performances by ma
val divers, Of which Drellishak's dive
was the climax, were made for the
purpose of testing Stilson's new de-
vice for regulating and controlling
pressure, and were successful only be-
cause the apparatus worked perfectly.
Drellishaks dive was made on No
vember 3 from the U. S. S. Wake,
about mile off Race Rock Light, near
New London, Conn. The high current
and the season of the year made the
dive even more remarkable; and al
though the men conducting the tests
were quite satisfied with the results,
Drellishak declares that he was quite
and could easily have
gone deeper, if the bottom had not
been in his way.
Elaborate precautions were taken to !
guard against disaster. Drellishak was
provided with the, new telephone used |
by naval divers in place of the old |
life line, and the men above kept in |
constant communication with him. He
was lowered gradually, in order that
he might become accustomed to the /
increasing pressures, and when he !
reached bottom, he was allowed to
stay only 10 minutes. The ascent took
an hour and a quarter and he was
left in the water at depth of 10I
feet for over half an hour, in order |
that he might not be attacked by the
trouble commonly known as the
bends" which results when men
working under compressed air come
out into the air at normal pressure |
too quickly.
Had this occurred in spite of all pre-. !
cautions, the men on the Wake were
prepared to give Drellishak- the best |
of care. A large chamber or cylin-
der was specially constructed, and DR..
G.. r. w. French of the United States
navy was ready to take proper relief ,
measures. The cylinder which was
to have been used was nothing more
or less than a tested decomposition
chamber fitted up like a modern no.
tel room inside, with electric light,
heater and telephone, hospital stretch.
er. pillows, blankets, mattresses, two
suits of clean dry wooden underwear,
a watch for timing operations, type
written instructions, copy of signals,
notebook and pencil. Had it been at
all necessary, DR.. French would has
entered his cylindrical chamber with
Drellishak as his patient, and remain.
ed with him in the compressed air
until he became accustomed again to
the normal pressure of the outside air.
1t has long been the contention of
the United States navy that there is
practically no limit to the depths of /
which a diver may descend in safety,
and exhaustive tests and experiments
which have been conducted by the
United States navy tend to prove that
deep-sea diving is in it's infancy. The
success Of the experiment aboard the
Wake has demonstrated that men
may go down into the sea and remain
down and work on the bottom to a
greater depth than was possible year
ago, and with the improvements that
are being developed, the mysteries of
the deep will not remain yelled from
human knowledge very much longer.
MEM EPnMTAHE rAN