Page 53: of Marine Technology Magazine (March 2013)

That must have been quite the feat in those early days. It was. When we did the dive on the Andria Doria we built a closed circuit diver gas recovery system because we could not afford the gas. We were in Fairhaven, Mass. rolling cylinders down the dock. That was Þ rst generation. Then we did another generation for Seaway Diving at Sat Systems. We were interested in recovering the purserÕs safe on the Doria, and the objective was to cut a hole in the wreck. To do this we built a portable saturation habitat called ÒMoth- erÓ that was lowered to the side of the wreck where we could breathe a mixture of 92% helium and 8% oxygen. This would allow us to work for several days before decompressing and surfacing. We did not get what we were after, but we did get a great deal of publicity. That publicity really took us to the next stage, which was to build equipment and use the money we made there to do more treasure diving. The two would then feed on each other. You went back to the Doria years later with a SeaBotix ROV as well. Yes. We went back on the 50th anniversary of the sinking just to bring new technology back to the Andria Doria. We used a SeaBotix LBV200 on that dive, and did a bunch of investigation on the wreck. What followed the earlier dives on the Doria? We then got a sizable contract with a Norwegian company called Seaway Diving who was just setting up their saturation diving program. This was to support the oil opera- tions in the North Sea. We got heavily involved and ended up working with a company called Draeger. Don Rodocker at an exhibition.www.seadiscovery.com MTR #2 (50-65).indd 53MTR #2 (50-65).indd 533/6/2013 2:32:49 PM3/6/2013 2:32:49 PM