From the UK...

[MistralOwner]

My 1st post! I am in Rugby, in England, UK. Have just bought a Spiro Mistral - arrived today. No doubt I will need to ask some 'dumb' questions... but I will try searching previous posts first!!!

This is my 1st purchase of Vintage Diving kit - although my 1st valve, a Poseidon CS300, almost qualifies as I bought it new in 1977 or 78, soon after I started diving.

Very impressed with the VDH site - wish there was something nearer to me.... (I would appreciate any info on anything similar in the UK or Europe.)

B Regs,
IanM

[kgehring]

Welcome to VDH! We have members world wide and a few in your back yard. I hope you will be able to share your feedback on diving your new Mistral.

[1969ivan1]

You have a great start with a MISTRAL! You have also come to the best forum/vintage scuba site as well. We have some active forum members in the UK so perhaps you can meet up with them, or they may even live near you!

I am an active trader and am always looking for European items to expand my Museum. So, if you are inclined to do some trading shoot me an email.

Rob

[usddude]

Dear Mr. MistralOwner. No worries we ARE with you. VDH is right there to help. I have a Spiro Royal also. I have stocked up on a couple of Spiro rebuild kits from the VDH store....top notch kits...also check out the 1" hoses...very nice!!!( still on my wish list)!!!!


Steve

[JES]

Welcome aboard!

[MistralOwner]

Thanks for the positive msgs. Much appreciated. Look forward to hearing from some UK members....!

To actually dive my Mistral requires me to find a cylinder valve it wll fit - the yoke is too small to fit my current ones, with modern DIN convertible valves. Believe this is a known problem. Need to find a smaller older type valve. For testing puposes, my club may have some - I will be checking Monday.

BRegs,
IanM

[Britmarine]

Look forward to hearing from some UK members....! BRegs, IanM

Welcome, compatriot! I vintage-snorkel here in the North East of England. Can't help with breathing gear as I don't scuba-dive, but I do have an interest in the history of exposure suits, fins, masks and snorkels and their use in snorkelling over the years. I've snorkelled for over a half a century and I prefer snorkelling with the kind of gear used back in the 1950s and 1960s.

You'll find the other VDH members an international bunch of welcoming and knowledgeable people. I've looked for UK vintage diving sites and I'm pretty certain there aren't any. The UK-based BSAC forum has a couple of contributors old enough to appreciate vintage diving, but the bulk of the members appear to be died-in-the-wool neophiles. I recall one exchange when a poster asked about an Avon drysuit he'd inherited and was virtually told by younger members that he was on a suicide mission if he even tried the suit on at home. I keep an eye on the BSAC forum because there's the occasional message about, say, a Britmarine oval mask that somebody's found in their loft and I can respond at length on the subject.

US vintage divers are far readier than their European counterparts to keep the history of snorkel and scuba diving alive. There's no European equivalent of the wonderful Skin Diving History website at

http://www.skindivinghistory.com

which has a marvellous collection of advertisements for American diving gear from the 1950s. Why isn't there a similar shrine with ads for British, e.g. Typhoon and Britmarine, underwater swimming equipment?

Anyway, welcome to the forum!

[MistralOwner]

Thanks, Britmarine! My 1st ever 'diving' experience was with a Britmarine mask & snorkel - in yellow!!! (As commonly sold in most UK seaside towns in the 1960's.) Long since gone, though.

BRegs,
IanM

[Britmarine]

Thanks, Britmarine! My 1st ever 'diving' experience was with a Britmarine mask & snorkel - in yellow!!! (As commonly sold in most UK seaside towns in the 1960's.) Long since gone, though. BRegs, IanM

I still have a black oval Britmarine mask and a pair of pale blue Britmarine B101 full-foot fins which occasionally get an outing in the North Sea. Sadly, the Britmarine-Haffenden company of Sandwich, Kent, has fallen on hard times:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/4764421.stm
In the late 1970s, the company abandoned their soft rubber Clipper and B101 fins, which so many young UK snorkellers had used as entry-level underwater gear, and started making hard plastic foot-crippling fins instead that nobody wanted. A few years later they stopped making underwater equipment altogether. Sometimes it's best for a firm to stick with what they do best rather than jump on a bandwagon to who knows where.