Frédéric Dumas
Encyclopedia
Frédéric Dumas was part of a team of three, with Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water...

 and Philippe Tailliez
Philippe Tailliez
Philippe Tailliez was a friend and colleague of Jacques Cousteau. He was an underwater pioneer, who had been diving since the 1930s.- Biography :...

, in which he was nicknamed Didi. They had a passion for diving, and developed the diving regulator
Diving regulator
A diving regulator is a pressure regulator used in scuba or surface supplied diving equipment that reduces pressurized breathing gas to ambient pressure and delivers it to the diver. The gas may be air or one of a variety of specially blended breathing gases...

 with the aid of the engineer Émile Gagnan
Emile Gagnan
Émile Gagnan was a French engineer and co-inventor of the diving regulator used for the first Scuba equipment in 1943...

. Frédéric Dumas then participated with Jacques-Yves Cousteau in the discovery of the underwater world and in bringing it to the attention of the general public.

His life

Frédéric Dumas was born on 14 January 1913 in Albi.

A pioneer of underwater fishing
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....

 on the French Riviera
French Riviera
The Côte d'Azur, pronounced , often known in English as the French Riviera , is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco...

, he met Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water...

 and Philippe Tailliez
Philippe Tailliez
Philippe Tailliez was a friend and colleague of Jacques Cousteau. He was an underwater pioneer, who had been diving since the 1930s.- Biography :...

 in 1937 and his exploits served as a subject in the first Cousteau film "Par dix-huit mètres de fond" ("Eighteen meters deep"), made in 1942.

Cousteau again chose him as an "actor" when he made his second film, "Epaves" ("Wrecks") in 1943, the first film featuring the new Cousteau-Gagnan aqua-lung
Aqua-lung
Aqua-Lung was the original name of the first open-circuit free-swimming underwater breathing set in reaching worldwide popularity and commercial success...

.

Dumas was a dive leader aboard the RV Calypso, and co-author or actor in many films and stories from the Cousteau team.

In 1953 he co-authored with Cousteau the book The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure
The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure
The Silent World is a 1953 book co-authored by Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Frédéric Dumas and edited by James Dugan. Although a French national, Cousteau wrote the book in English...

. It was their first book. In 1956 he was one of the principal architects of the ground-breaking film The Silent World
The Silent World
The Silent World is a 1956 French documentary film co-directed by the famed French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau and a young Louis Malle. The Silent World is noted as one of the first films to use underwater cinematography to show the ocean depths in color...

, in which his ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

 with the grouper
Grouper
Groupers are fish of any of a number of genera in the subfamily Epinephelinae of the family Serranidae, in the order Perciformes.Not all serranids are called groupers; the family also includes the sea basses. The common name grouper is usually given to fish in one of two large genera: Epinephelus...

 Jojo is famous.

From 1945 to 1965, Dumas was also a civilian collaborator in the French Navy
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...

's Groupement de Recherches Sous-marines (GRS or Underwater Research Group), which was set up by Cousteau and Taillez. It later became the Groupe d'Études et de Recherches Sous-Marines (GERS or Undersea Study and Research Group).

In 1946, Cousteau and Dumas dove into the Fountain of Vaucluse
Fontaine-de-Vaucluse
Fontaine-de-Vaucluse is a commune in the Vaucluse department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.-Heraldry:...

, a mysterious spring in the village of Vaucluse
Vaucluse
The Vaucluse is a department in the southeast of France, named after the famous spring, the Fontaine-de-Vaucluse.- History :Vaucluse was created on 12 August 1793 out of parts of the departments of Bouches-du-Rhône, Drôme, and Basses-Alpes...

, hoping to discover the secret of its yearly flooding. Maurice Fargues
Maurice Fargues
Maurice Fargues was a diver with the French Navy and a close associate of Jacques Cousteau. In August 1946, Fargues saved the lives of Cousteau and Frédéric Dumas during their dive into the Fountain of Vaucluse...

 was the operation's surface commander, in charge of the guide rope which allowed Cousteau and Dumas to communicate with the surface. When Cousteau and Dumas became affected by carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide
Carbon monoxide , also called carbonous oxide, is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is slightly lighter than air. It is highly toxic to humans and animals in higher quantities, although it is also produced in normal animal metabolism in low quantities, and is thought to have some normal...

 in their air cylinders, Fargues saved their lives by pulling them back up to the surface.

Dumas was one of the major players in the rescue of Professor Jacques Piccard
Jacques Piccard
Jacques Piccard was a Swiss oceanographer and engineer, known for having developed underwater vehicles for studying ocean currents. He was one of only two people, along with Lt...

's bathyscaphe
Bathyscaphe
A bathyscaphe is a free-diving self-propelled deep-sea submersible, consisting of a crew cabin similar to a bathysphere, but suspended below a float rather than from a surface cable, as in the classic bathysphere design....

, the FNRS II, during the 1949 expedition in Dakar. Thanks to this rescue, the French Navy could use the bathyscaphe's sphere in creating the FNRS III.

He was a founding member of the Sea Research Society
Sea Research Society
The Sea Research Society is a non-profit educational research organization founded in 1972. Its general purpose is to promote scientific and educational endeavors in any of the marine sciences or marine histories with the goal of obtaining knowledge for the ultimate benefit to mankind...

 and served on the Society's Board of Advisors. In 1972 Dumas participated in the creation of the research/professional degree of Doctor of Marine Histories.

After he retired from the GERS, he devoted himself particularly to undersea archaeology and was chairman of the archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 committee
Committee
A committee is a type of small deliberative assembly that is usually intended to remain subordinate to another, larger deliberative assembly—which when organized so that action on committee requires a vote by all its entitled members, is called the "Committee of the Whole"...

 of the Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques
Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques
The Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques is the World Underwater Federation. CMAS is the international umbrella organisation for recreational diver training organisations represented in the CMAS Technical Committee and underwater sports governed by the CMAS Sport Committee...

 (CMAS or World Underwater Activities Federation) and the Fédération Française d'Études et de Sports Sous-Marins
Fédération Française d'Études et de Sports Sous-Marins
The Fédération Française d'Etudes et de Sports Sous Marins is the main diver training organization of France and was formed in 1955. It has 160,000 members and consists of 2200 clubs. It is one of the founding members of the Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques...

 (FFESSM, French Undersea Studies and Sports Federation).

Frédéric Dumas died on 26 July 1991 in Toulon at the age of 78.

Quotations

  • "Frédéric Dumas had a reputation as a great spearfisherman. He surprised the landsmen when he came out of the water with huge fishes on the end of his spear. There was no pollution along the coast then." Philippe Tailliez.
  • "It was the period of the Dolce Vita, before 1936. We could hear the war approaching, but our common passion was merely more strengthened. The climate of the Côte d'Azur, like California
    California
    California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

    , allowed Dumas to live in this way-out standard, a kind of hippie
    Hippie
    The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...

     before the hour. Following Dumas, I proposed one day to Cousteau to meet Frédéric Dumas. This is how the team was formed.
    "
  • "Dumas was the god of water, he did what none of us could do, not by sensibility, but by nature, by philosophy. He played with it.".

Museum

Opened in 1994, the Museum Frédéric Dumas is in a 13th-century Romanesque
Romanesque architecture
Romanesque architecture is an architectural style of Medieval Europe characterised by semi-circular arches. There is no consensus for the beginning date of the Romanesque architecture, with proposals ranging from the 6th to the 10th century. It developed in the 12th century into the Gothic style,...

 tower available by the municipality of Sanary-sur-Mer
Sanary-sur-Mer
Sanary-sur-Mer is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.It is located from Toulon and from Marseille.-Overview:The seafront location was part of the commune of Ollioules...

.
  • Link: :fr:Musée Frédéric-Dumas (in French)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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