inflatables

The famed French explorer and underwater adventurer Jacques Cousteau was credited with many things during his long career. Among his notable successes (brought on by wartime need) were: The aqualung The underwater breathing regulator Standardized swim finsSome believe Cousteau, a noted diver in the 1940s, was also responsible for a good bit of what today would be called the wet suit (although the types of wet suits available now is mind-boggling).One thing that Cousteau is somewhat noted for and one would probably remember it if you watched his famed weekly Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau of the 1970s is the development of the Zodiac inflatable boat.The interesting thing to note is that many of the inventions of Cousteau and his fellow French developer Alain Bombard have become standard parts of the arsenals of the nations that field large fleets and specialized warfare arms groups such as the U.S. Navy Seals and like groups in other nations.The Zodiac, though, deserves special mention because it not only became a mainstay of Cousteaus weekly adventures as his dive teams explored the underwater reaches of the world you can probably find episodes of that show onlilne somewhere on the Internet, if you are interested but it is also the culmination of an effort that began with the first application of rubber vulcanization techniques nearly two centuries ago by Charles Goodyear, the father of modern rubber technology.In a serendipitous intersection of technology and initiative, some inventors began to wonder what they could do with vulcanized materials and the thought that ran through their minds was marine. That some of the inventors were from Britain, which, at the time, was the peacekeeper of the seas (1840) with the worlds largest navy (the U.S. Navy was tiny by comparison, though, growing).Interestingly, it was the Duke of Wellington, hero of Waterloo and many other battles and for whom a British regiment was named (the 33rd Foot), who saw the value of trying to use the revolutionary vulcanized technology to create pontoons for small boats. Commander-in-chief of the British army, Wellington participated in nearly 70 battles and during that time it must have occurred to him that river crossings possibly temporary bridges or raiding parties certainly would be facilitated if the army had small boats to command. However, given his penchant for logistic organization, Wellington also likely knew that standard wood boats of that era could not be carried easily, so he thought of the rubberized pontoon boat one that could be inflated, deflated and easily transported and that was the direct ancestor of the Zodiac pontoon craft so widely in use today.The next step in the evolution of the inflatable craft was by member of the British military, Lt. Peter Halkett. His development was of an individual craft that could serve as a poncho or raincoat when not being used as a waterproof, single-person craft. The term boat cloak was used to describe this use Halketts design, which, incidentally, was meant for polar exploration.Led by the military and its needs, the next advance in inflatable design came in the Mexican War when the Army Corps of Engineers devised inflatable boats that could also serve as pontoon bridges.Meanwhile, the 1850s saw an explosion in inflatable technology and even experts today still marvel at just how modern the of that era looked. Military warfare changed forever with the Civil War and the development of the ironclad ship (the memorable battle in 1863 between the ironclads Merrimack and Monitor for the North and South, though it ended in a draw, spelled doom for the wooden warship. Indeed, the propulsion systems used also spelled doom for the sidewheelers that were the majority of the U.S. Navy in the Civil War) as the Navy equipped each of its ironclad gunboats (used heavily in the Mississippi campaign of Grant and the capture of Vicksburgh) with several rubberized, inflatatable small craft to act as lifeboats.And, while this period of innovation and development yielded craft like the three-pontoon, inflatable PeruvianDE AAR1BQ/T NR11R 111237Z NOV 03FM AAR1BQ/T MATO AAM1RE MA AAA1SN RI AAM1TSN MABTSUBJ: PARTICIPATION REPORT FOR OCTOBER 20111. 30 2. 73. 04. 05. 06. 07. 012. UNFORTUNATELY, FAMILY OBLIGATIONS FORCED

ME TO MISS THE MEETING ON 22 OCT AT FT.

DEVENS, I DID, HOWEVER, SPEND TIME WORKING ON

EDITING A PRESENTATION TO ASSIST AAA1SN AND

AAR1CD. I SPENT A TOTAL OF 23 HOURS WORKING ON

THOSE ASSIGMENTS. I WAS ON THE AIR IN MORNING

NETS FOR SEVEN HOURS. I AM GAINING VALUABLE

EXPERIENCE IN THE DIFFERENCES OPERATING

BETWEEN VARIOUS SERVICES AS I AM AN ACTIVE

MEMBER OF THE AMATEUR RADIO EMERGENCY

SERVICE OF THE ARRL AND I MANAGE A STATE

RESOURCE FOR MA ON HF IN THE RACES

ORGANIZATION. RACES AND ARES DO USE THE SAME

MESSAGE FORMATS. I AM PLANNING, BEFORE SNOW,

TO CHANGE MY ANTENNA FROM A SLOPER TO A DELTA

LOOP THAT SHOULD INCREASE MY SIGNAL STRENGTH.

I HOPE TO TAKE MY TURN AS NCS AND ANCS AS MY

SIGNAL IMPROVES. I WILL KEEP YOU UPDATED.

BT