The Eccentric Engineer

96 TIME OUT COLUMNIST A young engineer’s fear of suffocating underwater led him to create the grab and go solution for the drowning man, with unlikely help from a world-famous tyre company. by Justin Pollard DESIGN Competition But he could see one major What is the Royal Navy limitation with the system: the A QUEST TO SAVE THE submariner smiling about? long tube and surface rig that The wittiest caption emailed tethered the diver. Like Fernez, DROWNING MAN to engtechmag@theiet. he found his answer in the tyre org by 10 July 2015 wins a inflation business. Royal Navy pair of books from Haynes. For rural garages where there submariner in immersion suit with was no compressor, Michelin full escape kit supplied compressed air for inflating car tyres in bottles. Le below. To help the diver cope in Prieur approached Fernez and this high- pressure world, Fernez suggested that they could adapt also invented a pince-nez to his equipment to let divers carry prevent water rushing up the their own air supply strapped to nose, and a set of goggles to let their chest in the form of a them see where they were going. Michelin bottle. To achieve this, This Fernez Model I really did le Prieur invented a pressure work, though it hardly gave the regulator that the diver could diver complete freedom of manually adjust according to movement, as they were attached their depth. Air continually to a surface pump and reliant on passed through the regulator and the chap turning the handle at out of the exhaust, the diver the right rate to keep the air simply breathing the air-stream. coming. It proved popular with Just a year later the Fernez-Le Greek sponge divers but was Prieur system was demonstrated hardly the ‘grab and go’ solution in a Paris swimming pool and the for rescuing someone drowning. age of scuba diving had begun. * At this point a French naval officer, Yves le Prieur, arrived on CAPTION PRIZES the scene. Le Prieur was one of those amateur engineers whose BAG A BOOK problem-solving abilities were born of necessity. He had been stationed in Japan, becoming the THE STORY of modern diving moment could just grab and go. first person to take to the sky in for pleasure began in the late Fernez’s first idea was to fill a that country in a self-built glider. 19th century when a young balloon with air and attach it to a In the First World War he’d made Maurice Fernez fell into water. mouthpiece, but this was only his name with the development The accident damaged his ankle, suitable for a breath or two. Next of the ‘Le Prieur rocket leaving him with a lifelong limp he considered attaching a long launcher’. From the early days of and a not unreasonable fear of hose to a surface float at one end air combat it had been noted that drowning. But rather than avoid with a simple mouthpiece and normal machine gun rounds This month’s competition the water, Fernez decided to exhaust valve at the other. The tended to go straight through winner will receive copies of conquer his fear. diver drew air down from the hydrogen-filled observation ‘Top Fuel Dragster Owners’ He became obsessed with the surface and exhaled through the balloons and Zeppelins without Workshop Manual’ and ‘Alien idea of building an apparatus exhaust. This worked better, but causing any real damage. Le Invasion Owners’ Resistance that would allow someone to be as the depth increased, the water Prieur invented a system for Manual’, two new titles from submerged for long enough to pressure made it ever harder to firing what were in effect large the ever-expanding range rescue a drowning person. Of draw down the air, which was firework rockets with blades of Haynes Manuals (haynes. course people had been diving still only at surface pressure. attached from the wing struts of co.uk). Winner of our April since antiquity, and deep-sea Below a metre-and-a-half it fighter planes. These slightly issue competition is Colin diving equipment and even proved impossible, so the Heath-Robinson devices proved Childs: “Honey, it’s safe to submarines were becoming device’s life-saving potential remarkably successful until they come out: it’s not an MP at the commonplace, but these had was somewhat limited. were superseded by incendiary door on the campaign trail”. limitations for the lifesaver. In Fernez realised he’d have to and tracer rounds. the time it would take to don a add a pump that could deliver air However, le Prieur later full diving suit and find someone to the diver at the same pressure turned his attention from the air to operate the pumps, or hop into as the water around them. It was to the sea. In 1925 he witnessed a a handy submarine, the at this point that the Michelin demonstration at the Industrial drowning victim would have tyre company came to the rescue. and Technical Exhibition in undoubtedly gone ahead and Fernez bought a manual tyre Paris of the Fernez apparatus. died. What was needed was a inflation pump of the sort sold to Just as he had been inspired in lightweight, self-contained garages and used it to pump air Japan to take to the air, he was CORBIS, IMAGE SOURCE IMAGE CORBIS, system that the hero of the from the surface to the diver now inspired to roam the depths. Engineering & Technology July 2015 www.EandTmagazine.com C2201_R20657_default_1.BK.indd 96 11/06/2015 10:51.

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