Diving suit

For the sporting garment known as a diver, see Sudadera.

Recording depicting the scaphandre invented in 1775 by Jean-Baptiste de La Chapelle.

The word scuba, from the French scaphandre and this from the Greek skaphe (boat) and andros (man), was used for the first time in 1775 by the French abbot Jean-Baptiste de La Chapelle in his book Treatise on the Theoretical and Practical Construction of the Diving Suit or Man's Boat (Traité de la construction théorique et pratique du scaphandre ou du bateau de l'homme).

Chapelle consisted of a suit made of cork that allowed the soldiers to float and cross a water course. The French Academy of Sciences did not find this invention useful but retained its name, because years later the word scaphandre was retained in French for underwater breathing apparatus, subsequently passing into the Spanish language under the form "diving suit". The first design of a diving suit is by Leonardo da Vinci. Thus, currently, the word no longer refers to the invention of the Abbot de la Chapelle but to a set of equipment and devices that allow a person to safely penetrate an environment that is hostile to him. The word "diving suit" therefore refers to the following equipment and devices:

Buzo equipped with escafandra, illustration dated in 1858.

Escafandra design by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Classic diving suit: Known simply as diving suit. This is the device that in the Spanish language is genuinely called "diving helmet", the Dictionary of the Royal Academy, for example, defines the word referring only to this device, intended to wander underwater. It consists of a metal helmet connected to the surface by a hose through which the air that the diver breathes during his immersion is supplied. Waterproofing is achieved by a rubber-coated canvas suit that is hermetically attached to the bottom of the helmet and keeps the diver's body dry at all times (from head to toe the diver is in direct contact with the air provided by the surface, and not by the water surrounding your suit). The suit is flexible, so the water pressure affects the air contained by the diving suit, compressing it in proportion to the depth reached by the diver and forcing him to take all necessary measures to avoid decompression syndrome.

On the left, a rigid scafandra, model of 1935 used during an expedition to the fish of the RMS Lusitania. On the right a conventional scafandra, with metal helmet and flexible woven suit waterproof.

Rigid diving suit: It is an evolution of the aforementioned diving suit, but it is designed for great depths, up to hundreds of meters deep in the case of the most advanced models. Rigid scuba can be autonomous (with a limited air reserve and carried by the diver) or dependent on surface-supplied air, but in both cases they are made up of rigid articulated parts. The latter means that the air pressure inside an atmospheric scuba can remain equivalent to atmospheric pressure, that is, the air pressure on the surface, so the diver does not need the same precautions as a helmet scuba and flexible suit in relation to its decompression of gases.

A current divers, equipped with an autonomous escafandra (compressed air bottle, regulator, neoprene suit, fins, drag and decompression tool, such as a dive computer).

Scuba: This term actually designates the equipment used by a scuba diver who dives with equipment completely independent from the surface (a regulator coupled to a compressed air reservoir, a rebreather, etc.). The autonomous scuba is the most common diving device since the French Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Émile Gagnan invented the regulator in 1943. Today Spanish-speaking divers do not call it "scuba" but refer to it simply by the general term "diving equipment." In the case of diving with a regulator, said equipment usually includes at least one or more bottles of compressed air (or other breathable gases), the regulator that allows decompressing the air to the pressure of the environment (to make it breathable for the diver), a suit diving suit (generally made of neoprene), diving fins, weights and the necessary tools to calculate decompression (generally a dive computer, although it is also possible to calculate using decompression tables, stopwatch and depth gauge). The decompression tool (computer or tables) is necessary for an autonomous diver because his regulator provides him with air at the same pressure as the surrounding water at all times. The autonomous diver is therefore in the same gas compression situation as a traditional diver with a helmet and air hose, but not a diver using a rigid scuba.

Diving suit or space suit: The term "diving suit" also applies to the suits that astronauts use for their space walks. Depending on or autonomous from their space vehicle, these space suits or diving suits maintain a constant atmospheric pressure inside, just like the atmospheric diving suits used to explore the great ocean depths.

Stronautical diving suit: Finally, in the domain of aviation, it was a pressurized suit designed by Colonel Emilio Herrera Linares in 1935 to be used during a stratospheric flight by means of an open nacelle hot air balloon scheduled for the following year. It is considered one of the antecedents of the space suit.