Beneath The Sea 1999 - Page 2
Meadowlands Convention Center
Secaucus, N.J, March 26-28, 1999
GENE RITTER was getting bored watching the passers-by and decided to get in some appropriate
reading with the latest issue of Imersed.
With all the Viking drysuits being used by the group, the Viking rep
from their nearby booth offered Gene Ritter this brand new Viking Sport to try out.
GREG PLATT MADE THE FIRST DIVE with his factory-fresh SuperLite 27 in the tank with Dan Butler in the MkV
and then posed (below right) for his first official portrait with the new hat.
Mark and Dawn Butler had missed BTS '98 because of the birth that week of their son Sean,
who got plenty of attention. "Uncle" Greg Platt (below left) enjoyed entertaining Sean.
"The Butlers let me play with all of their toys."
"THAT DIAPER'S GOTTA GO!" Poppa Mark Butler has the ultimate solution for 1-year-old Sean's bathroom habits
in the form of his "TECO Mask," a Thompson Engineering shallow water mask based upon
a WWII-style Navy modified gasmask.
THOSE WHO BELIEVE JIM BOYD HAS A SWELLED HEAD were proven wrong (below) when he dived
his "Bubble Hat," a home-made rig crafted from PVC pipe and a clear plastic "beer ball"
by a commercial diver from Washington state. With sweat clothes under the Viking dress
for insulation in the 46-degree water, Jim needed a scuba belt in addition to the MkV weight belt!
That hat is incredibly buoyant!.
Name Change
Since the Northeast Working Equipment Group was never an official function of the Historical Diving Society-USA,there has been some concern over the national organization's potential liability situation,
since it does not directly supervise our activities. To ease the concerns of the HDS,
the group is changing its name to the "Northeast Diving Equipment Group" and dropping the HDS-USA heading
from the group's letterhead, T-shirts and promotional material.
Our friendly and cooperative relationship with the HDS-USA will continue, however,
as the group is still made up of "volunteer members of the Historical Diving Society - USA."