Vintage diving suit....?

[e.m.p!]

Hi guys,

think I need your help.... recently I read a very interesting article on sponge diving in Greece and how the whole industry took off with the introduction of the 'new' diving suits (I'm talking about back in the day!). Well, that was the times when divers got confronted the first time with DCS and first thing they did when stepping out of the suit was smoking a cigarette. If their breath smelled odd (well - smoker's breath does smell odd anyway), they knew something was wrong but DCS wasn't an invented condition at this time. Apparently, whole families got wiped out and the death toll was immense...
Well, the article was written in German and showed up in print in the magazine MARE. I can't find it online anymore but anyway:
To get to the point: I remember that this suits had a certain name (yes, the ones with the pothole-helmet and the bulky shoes) any idea about this name and where I can find some pictures, drawings, how they worked, etc.?
Much appreciated!

Chur, Klaus

 

[trux]

You are lucky, there is even a scientific study about the thermal insulation of greek sponge divers:

Thermal insulation and shivering threshold in Greek sponge divers -- Veicsteinas and Rennie 52 (4): 845 -- Journal of Applied Physiology

Otherwise, you can find some websites, and photos in Google if you enter expressions like "sponge diver" or "skandalopetra" (that's a traditional competition in diving with the stone greek divers used):

sponge divers - Google Search
http://images.google.com/images?q=sponge+divers

Already the first result is quite interesting: Greek sponge diving

 

[..Sam..]

I think what your looking for is a hard hat dive suit? Maybe.
The ones with the big brass helmet and big heavy boots.

As for where you can get one, ebay maybe, or if there are some families of the sponge divers they may have one lying around in the garage.

We have a few vintage diver clubs here in Melbourne and they have some of these suits and dive with them every now and then.

 

[e.m.p!]

Yes, these are the kind of suits I was looking for.... Funny, I must have put the wrong search terms into google.
Sam, I definitely won't buy one of these. I'm a diving fan, but rather with as less gear as possible. It's just a topic that really interests me and the article and research was fantastic. Thanks guys!
(BTW: The suit is called Skafandro)

 

[drunkinbda]

k this pic definitely made me double take..

 

[e.m.p!]

cool, the suit even grows you a third arm.... That's handy, maybe I should reconsider buying one, haha

 

[drunkinbda]

hehe thats what i thought, but after lookin at it again, perhaps he just recovered someone elses.. 0.0

 

[Oldsarge]

Ewwwwww . . .

 

[Oldsarge]

They're called Skafandro? My butt! They're called Claustrophobia Hell, anyway you slice it. I'd move to Kansas if that's all there was to dive in.