The History of Oilfield Diving...

...is an excellent book. Published in November 2007. Author Christopher Swann spent 18 years writing it, and he has given ODM the exclusive right to serialize his work. For this we are very grateful.

Beginning with ODM # 6, we are going to explore this book one chapter at a time. We asked Chris to select the first one and he chose # 20 - The First North Sea Bell Contracts. Now it's your turn. Go over the list; decide which one you want to see next, and vote here by email. Red denotes chapters already published. 

847 pages of deep sea diving bad ass history. At one chapter per issue,  it's going to take a while to serialize the entire book. If you can't wait ten years to read it all, order it today.

click here to

Vote

for the chapter you want next in ODM

The History of Oilfield Diving
An Industrial Adventure
By Christopher Swann
Available from
www.oceanautpress.com

Chapter Titles

  1   The Beginning
  2   A New Industry
  3   The First Oilfield Diving Companies
  4   California: The First Deep-Water Work
  5   Associated Divers: The Masters of Deep Air Diving
  6   Helium: The Key to the Depths
  7   An Abalone Diver Dethrones Associated Divers
  8   Hannes Keller and His Secret Mixtures
  9   The Expansion of Helium Diving in California
10   Helium Diving Comes to the Gulf of Mexico
11   Libya
12   The North Sea
13   The First Industrial Diving Company
14   Cal Dive: The Triumph of Perseverance
15   The Highest Paid Divers in the World
16   Kirby Morgan: A Most Effective Collaboration
17   Saturation Diving Arrives in the Oilfields
18   The Development of Hyperbaric Pipeline Welding
19   Divcon Prepares for Deep-Water Drilling
20   The First North Sea Bell Contracts
21   Comex: The French Connection
22   Marching to a Different Drummer: Sogetram and IUC
23   The Helium Barrier
24   Australia
25   The Biggest Diving Company in the World
26   Oceaneering: A Minnow Swallows a Whale
27   Ekofisk
28   Sub Sea International
29   Comex's British Face
30   The First 1,000-Foot Contract
31   Deep Bounce Diving Gives Way to Saturation
32   Doctor Lambertsen's Predictive Studies
33   BP Forties
34   Southeast Asia: Oceaneering's Supercharged Market
35   The Move to Prime Contracting
36   The Association of Diving Contractors
37   The North Sea: Fatal Accidents and Legislation
38   The North Sea: Fatal Accidents and Safety Groups
39   The North Sea: Diving Medicine
40   The Experiences of a North Sea Diving Medical Specialist
41   The Return of the Iron Man
42   Martech and the Flying Eyeball
43   The Brief Era of the Manned Submersible
44   Shell Cognac: The World's Deepest Construction Job
45   Comex: Janus IV; The Hard Years
46   Wharton Williams
47   The Multi-Million Dollar Market: Hyperbaric Welding in the North Sea
48   Manipulator Bells, Atmospheric Suits and One-Man Submersibles
49   The Emergence of the Work ROV
50   The Near-Death and Rebirth of Oceaneering
51   Brazil: The Deep Diving Frontier
52   The Last Deep Experimental Dives: Dr. Bennett and Nitrogen Trimix
53   The Last Deep Experimental Dives: Comex and Hydrogen
54   Doctor Shields's Survey of North Sea Air Diving
55   OPEC and the Oil Price Crash
56   The Survival of the Fittest
57   Shake-Out in the North Sea
58   A Mature Industry
59   Regulation and Safety in the North Sea
60   Rescue and Treatment
61   A National Hyperbaric Centre
62   The Inexorable Advance of the ROV
63   The Human Alternative
64   Are Divers Damaging their Long-Term Health?

Apendices:
A   The Evolution of the Mobile Drilling Rig
B   Hannes Keller's Decompression Procedures: Excerpt from Dr. Val
      Hempleman's Letter to the Author of October 29 1993
C   HMS Reclaim 600-foot trials, 1965
D   Excerpts from UK Diving Regulations Pertaining to Chapters 59 & 61