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About BSAC A brief history of the life and times of BSAC. There's nothing like experience Building on rock - the foundation of the BSAC system.. Evolution & Development How BSAC developed its renowned training system. Trail Blazers Some interesting moments from the BSAC story. |
Trail Blazers - it all started here50 Great Moments in BSAC History01 A club is born - 15 October 1953
02 Neptune surfaces - 1954 The first club magazine, Neptune, is produced by Peter Small in September, and is later renamed Triton. 03 Club recognition - 1955 In March the club is accepted by the Central Council of Physical Recreation to act as a representative body on the council. This was the basis from which the club gained its governing body status. 04 Underwater hockey - 1956 Members of Southsea SAC in Hampshire invent Octopush as a way of keeping divers fit through the winter. 05 Branching out - 1957 The first overseas branch is launched in October in Kingston, Jamaica. The branch is started by Stan Downton, who had been posted with his job to Kingston from London and found to his amazement that, despite the clear blue water and reefs, there was little interest in undersea exploration. The club prospers and goes on to win the Heinke Trophy for best branch in 1961. 06 First federation - 1958 Alan Broadhurst succeeds Jack Atkinson as the club's national diving officer and in September forms the first federation of BSAC branches - Norfed. 07 Club manual - 1959 January sees the publication of the first BSAC manual. The club's chairman, George Brookes, writes it together with national diving officer Alan Broadhurst. 08 The Brighton Conference - 1959 Brighton Sub-Aqua Club launches the Brighton Conference in autumn, an international meeting of leading figures in the underwater world, scientists and film-makers. It's a quiet start, but the event goes on to become a red-letter day in the diving calendar. 09 Channel attempt - 1960 London branch divers accompany adventuress Jane Baldasare on the first attempt to swim the Channel underwater. The bid looks as if it is going to be successful, but Baldasare gives up about three-quarters of the way into her journey after surfacing during a changeover. 10 Evolutionary talk - 1960 At the second Brighton Conference, Professor Sir Alister Hardy unveils his controversial theory of man's evolution. His idea is that mankind had an aquatic phase during evolution, which gives rise to the 'aquatic ape' school of post-Darwinian thinking.
Royal appointment - 1960 The Duke of Edinburgh attends the Brighton Conference and, following an approach by Oscar Gugen and Colin McLeod, agrees to act as president of the club. Royal backing is a massive coup for BSAC, and leads to a golden era in British diving. 12 Maine event - 1962 In February Torbay BSAC decides to undertake a survey of wrecks within the '20-fathom line', and discovers the 3,700-tonne wreck of the Maine. Club members buy the wreck for £100 and carry out salvage themselves, raising the bronze propeller and selling it for £800. The profits are used to produce the promotional diving film, When you know how... which shows the public how easy diving can be with the correct training. 13 Cousteau lecture - 1962 BSAC hosts a congress in September for the newly formed 'World Underwater Federation'. Jacques Cousteau gives a controversial lecture, proposing that gills can be grafted onto humans, creating 'Homo Aquaticus'. The event launches BSAC onto international scene. 14 Diver launch - 1963 The club's bi-monthly magazine, Triton, proves too much of a burden to be produced on a part-time basis. In March it is taken over by Bernard Eaton - a journalist friend of Peter Small - who later renames it Diver. 15 New coach - 1963 BSAC appoints Brian Booth as its first full-time coach. 16 Manx trip - 1965 Norfed takes 144 divers (with full kit) to the Isle of Man for a dive trip. The June expedition is successful beyond anyone's imaginings, and five special flights are laid on. To receive such co-operation from a commercial airline today would be highly unlikely! 17 Home, deep home - 1965 Bournemouth SAC sets up an underwater house, Glaucus, in Plymouth Sound, the brainchild of the branch's science officer, Colin Irwin. In September two members live there for seven days, showing that Cousteau's experiments in underwater living can be done on a smaller budget. Today, the 'house' is still at the bottom somewhere, though probably broken up. 18 Feeling buoyant - 1965
19 Effluent society - 1966 Undersea habitation is still all the rage. At the Brighton Conference, Cousteau talks about his Conshelf experiment in the Sudanese Red Sea. Other speakers include Captain George Bond, who talks about the US Navy's Sealab trials. But the real visionary is pioneering environmentalist Dr David Bellamy, with his stirring talk on pollution - The Effluent Society 20 Mary Rose discovered - 1966 Southsea member John Towse and Alexander McKee discover the wreck of the Mary Rose after finding an obscure mark on a hydrographic chart. Towse and McKee of the Scientific Group do their historic first dive on the Tudor warship on 14 May 1966, in zero visibility. It's another four years before the wreck is formally identified, but the sheer significance of this dive still resounds today. 21 Association dive - 1967 Admiral Sir Cloudisley Shovell's 18th-century flagship, the Association, is discovered and dived in July by members of the Naval Air Command Sub-Aqua Club (NACSAC) off the Isles of Scilly. The wreck is of great historical importance, having gone down in 1707. 22 Operation Kelp - 1967 It's the year of Operation Kelp, a massive environmental science project organised by David Bellamy. It involves the help of 25 BSAC branches and 262 members from all over the UK, who take kelp samples from the North Sea as a method of checking pollution levels. Bellamy and the divers win the Duke of Edinburgh prize for their hard work, and BSAC asks the botanist to become its science officer. 23 TV success - 1969 A six-part television series on diving is produced by London Weekend Television, fronted by wreck aficionado and future BSAC chairman Kendall McDonald. BSAC membership soars after it is screened. 24 Wreck respect - 1969 Alex Flinder is elected chairman in June. An architect by profession, his major passion is for marine archaeology. He serves on the Runciman Committee, which results in the Wreck Protection Act. His lasting influence is in encouraging the use of amateur divers in this field, despite the scepticism of some professional archaeologists. 25 Full-time staff - 1969
26 Galleon discovery - 1969 Archaeologist Dr Colin Martin oversees a major expedition in July, which locates the Spanish galleon Santa Maria de la Rosa off Ireland. Dr Martin's team finds the wreck after carrying out painstaking swim-line searches covering an estimated 300 acres. 27 Centre of excellence - 1970 In April retired Naval Commander Alan Bax and former Royal Engineer Jim Gill obtain a lease from the Ministry of Defence to use Fort Bovisand as a diver-training centre. It goes on to become a centre of excellence for BSAC training and turns out some of the club's leading divers in the 1970s and 80s. 28 Project Starfish - 1970 David Bellamy - by now British diving's brightest star - launches Project Starfish, to collect kelp, mussels and starfish to concentrate research on pollution in the food chain. The project has gone down as the largest single undersea biological investigation ever undertaken. 29 Chamber success - 1970 BSAC divers John Bevan and Peter Sharphouse do a successful chamber dive to 1,500ft (492m) in March, with a bottom time of ten hours. The dive involves a total of 12 days inside the Navy chamber at Alverstoke, Gosport in Hampshire. The dive disproves theories that divers would experience a so-called 'helium barrier' at 1,200ft (393m), which would not allow them to venture deeper. 30 Jewel in the crown - 1972 Reg Vallintine organises the first-ever expedition to St Kilda, an island that lies well beyond the Outer Hebrides. The expedition in June has eight divers from eight branches and discovers large Atlantic swells, blue water, and some of the best diving in British waters. St Kilda remains the jewel in the crown of British diving. 31 Ocean talk - 1973 The Oceans 2000 World Congress is hosted by BSAC in October. Talks by Arthur C Clarke, Hannes Keller, Hans Hass, Philippe Tailliez and Scott Carpenter. It has since been said that this was the best-ever diving conference to be held in the UK. 32 Presidential heir - 1974 
The Prince of Wales takes over the presidency of the club from his father, and has remained in the position to this day. Again, it is a massive coup for the club. Among his underwater adventures are dives on the Mary Rose, and an adventure under Arctic ice. 33 X-5 expedition - 1974 In June BSAC divers join Peter Cornish's expedition to locate and establish the fate of the X-5 midget submarine in the Norwegian Kaafjord. The X-5 had been lost in an attempt to disable the German pocket battleship, Tirpitz. 34 Key of the door - 1974 
It's BSAC's 21st anniversary. Celebrations take place at the London Guildhall and are attended by the Prince of Wales and the comedian Harry Secombe. The event has gone down in BSAC history, thanks especially to Secombe's eccentric performance of I'm forever blowing bubbles. Both of these special guests were able to attend the 40th anniversary celebrations in 1993, again at the Guildhall.35 Icelandic adventure - 1981 Photographer Gordon Ridley - a dynamic expedition leader - leads a pioneering BSAC trip to the Vestmannaeyjar islands off southwest Iceland. Three consecutive fortnight voyages take place, including a visit to the world's youngest island, Surtsey, a volcanic island that was spewed out of the Atlantic between 1963 and 1967. 36 Raising of the Mary Rose - 1982
37 Making the grades - 1984 The new diver grades are phased in, introducing novice, sport, dive leader, and advanced diver into the BSAC lexicon. 38 Oxygen admin - 1985
The move comes after NAUI instructor Jim Corry attends a Diving Officers' Conference as a guest and persuades BSAC's key figures that O2 administration will save lives. NAUI had been too wary to take up Corry's suggestions, but BSAC takes the idea and turns it into one of its most successful courses. Use of oxygen has saved hundreds of lives on club dives since this inspired move. 39 Decompression tables - 1988 
BSAC becomes the first organisation to offer diving tables that take into account sport divers' genuine needs and practices, with the launch of the BSAC '88 Decompression Tables. Work on these had begun in 1986.40 Worth a try - 1993 Introduction of the Learn to Dive campaign in September, which every year sees thousands of people given try-dives. The club also manages to get snorkelling introduced to the national curriculum, although it later disappears. 41 Periscope up - 1995 The wreck of the Resurgam is discovered in December by BSAC diver Keith Hurley off the North Wales coast. Regarded by some as the Holy Grail of submarine diving, the Resurgam was the world's first practical, functioning submarine, but had been missing since 1880. Hurley reports that the wreck is in good condition, but has a hole in the bow. 42 Dawn of DIVE - 1999 
In June BSAC has a new club magazine in DIVE, published by former Sunday Times executive Graeme Gourlay. The contract had been put out to tender by the club's council in 1998, as part of a club policy to get better value for money from its magazine contract. Gourlay had already made inroads into the dive publishing world with Dive International, which had been launched in 1995, and impressed the council with his plans for close partnership and share of advertising revenue. DIVE remains the official journal of the BSAC to this day.43 New chairman - 1999 Phil Harrison is elected vice-chairman in June, but steps into the role of chairman when Ned Middleton says he is unable to take up the post. 44 Operations opportunity - 1999 Mary Tetley is appointed operations manager at BSAC HQ in October, and she and Harrison buckle down to leading the club out of a financial crisis created by a rogue accountant. Helped by council and the members, they succeed. 45 Bring out your brass - 2001 A wreck amnesty is declared in January, bringing to light hundreds of historical artefacts found by divers over the years. The amnesty - backed by the BSAC - is declared a huge success, and helps fight off a campaign to seriously restrict wreck divers. Items reported under the amnesty include portholes, pieces of eight, ammunition, bottles of vintage champagne, toilet bowls and even a pair of white lace knickers! 46 Role for rebreathers - 2001 
In a bold move, in December BSAC announces its approval of the use of rebreathers in branches. The move comes as AP Valves and Dräger make inroads into the burgeoning rebreather market with the Inspiration and the Dolphin. Also this year, BSAC sanctions use of trimix in branches, with depth limitations.47 Training revisions - 2002 With the completion of the revised diver-training programme in September a new era opens for BSAC instruction. 48 Required reading - 2002 
The club's manual receives a complete overhaul in October, and is reborn in the form of The Diving Manual: An Introduction to Scuba Diving. The new-look manual is lavishly illustrated, authored by former BSAC chairman Deric Ellerby, and comes with an inspirational foreword from the Prince of Wales. It sells like hot cakes.49 Race for the bell - 2002 Working with British Navy clearance divers, BSAC divers Gavin Heywood and George McClure win the race to recover the bell of the Prince of Wales from its grave in the South China Sea. The expedition which takes place in August is launched in a matter of weeks when Heywood warns that the British battleship's bell is in an open position, and could be lifted at any moment by technical divers. 50 Golden jubilee - 2003 BSAC celebrated its 50th anniversary with a year of expeditions, branch activities and mass dive-ins. The celebrations culminated in a historic return to Le Meridien Waldorf Hotel - the scene of BSAC's formation - for a slap-up dinner on 29 November. It's was the party to end all parties! |
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