Blue water White Death

[Phil Nuytten <72020.572@compuserve.com>]

Hi, Ken:
        'BW,WD' was produced by the late Peter Gimbel ( Gimbel's - New
York) same guy that did the Andea Doria stuff  . . .I was pretty heavily
involved in the Doria stuff since we built the Diving bell/chamber system
used in the film - try Andrea Doria search to get the name of Gimbel's
production company for BWWD. The principle photographer on the BWWD shoot
was Stan Waterman . . .he may remember an automatic depth holding system
but I doubt it . . .The system I recall was a simple, manual, soft ballast
system - with a couple of surface floats to limit the downward excursion.
You blow ballast to surface and flood tanks to sink to the end of the float
lines which are pre-set.
        An automatic add system for constant depth is very simple to build
( Toilet float prinicple!!) but my recollection is that such a system was
not used in BWWD. I have ( for our museum collection) one of the shark
cages that Al Giddings used in several of his shark extravaganzas and it is
fitted out with a simple soft ballast system. Hope this helps.

Regards
Phil Nuytten