Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-17
DIVERS SET DEPTH
RECORD BY USE Of
SUB SAFETY LUNG
Two Descend to 357 FEET
in Navy Air Pressure Tank
With Device.
3O5-F0OT MARK FIXED
IN SALVAGE WORK FALLS
Neither Harmed by Experience
With Force Held On Two
Minutes During Test.

The world diving record was smash
ed with the AID of the lung" the
Nays new submarine escape device,
in pressure tank at the Washington
Navy Yard this morning, Chief Torpe-
domen Edward Kalinoski and P. J.
Hoy, Navy divers, going to a record
theoretical depth of 357 feet
The old mark was 306 feet. estab-
lished off Honolulu in the Spring of
1915. when four Navy divers, among
them Frank Crilley, foremost diver OF
the country, were working to salvage
the sunken submarine F-4.
Actually Kalinoski and Hoy were only
in feet of water this morning when
they made their record but the new
pressure tank was fed air until within
the tank the pressure reached 155
pounds (gauge) per square inch. the
pressure they would find 357 feet below
the surface of the sea.
Holding onto weights placed in the
bottom of the tank, Kalinoski and Hoy
ducked under the water in the tank and
held on while the pressure, Stimulating
deep sea conditions at 357 feet was held
on for two minutes.
Both men came out after the usual
decomposition period, none the worse
for their experience, and confident that
the lung" would withstand pressures
which would be encountered down as
deep as 400 feet.
Wore Only Bathing Suits.
The most remarkable part of the feat
Is that while the divers who went down
306 feet in their efforts TO salvage the
F-4 wore the heavy, cumberSon diving
suits in use by the Navy, KalinoSki and
Hoy wore only bathing suits and the
small and flimsy-looking lung
apparatus.
The record dives were made without
any show, only Frank M. Hobson, a civil
engineer attached to the Bureau of
Construction and Repair of the Navy
Department and Chief Gunner Clarence
L. Tibbals. co-inventorS of the lung
and attendants of the diving school at
the Navy Yard being on hand.
Through the glass ports in the sides
of the big pressure tank. which is built
to withstand 400 pounds air pressure
the two men could be seen during tht
test.
Light headed" at IS Feet.
The divers, emerging from the tank
said that they did not feel any i'll eff
fectS from their experience under water
pressures never, before withstood by
man At about IS feet under the simu-
lated conditions, they said, they began
to feel a little light-headed from the
pressure, but from then on it was just
like any other dive or taking pressure
in the decomposition tank.
While they were In the tank, under
water, both men were whipped about
violently by the ever-increasing buoy
| ance of the oxygen bags of theil
lungs"
Chief Gunner Tibbals, who handled
the valves and superintendent the RECORD
attempts of the two divers, was in con.
slant touch with the men through 9
previously arranged system of signals BY
taps on the walls of the tank In this
way, both men inside the tank were
able to tell those outside just how things
were going with them inside.
Lung Is Ascending Device.
Chief Gunner Tibbals, after the men
had emerged from the tank declared
that the lung" primarily an escape
apparatus. could not be used with any
measure of success in actual diving and
salvage work. 1T is an ascending, not
descending device he said. The
experiment today proves conclusively
that men can come out of submarines
at a depth Of $50 feet or more and
ascend TO the surface without i'll effects
provided they follow the simple in
structions for decompressing them
selves on the way up.
The deepest previous test for the
lung" in actual submarine escape was
made last Winter, when Navy divers
escaped from the reconditioned Navy
submarine S-4 225 feet in Florida
waters off Key West.