The Calypso: Jacques Cousteau's Crazy Exploration Vessel [video] | Hacker News Reader

The Calypso: Jacques Cousteau's Crazy Exploration Vessel [video]

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56 pointslatchkey19 comments

Nice to see this video pop up on HN, I had watched it just a few days ago. I still can remember the exciting reports of the Calypso's exploration on TV in the 70ies. Faszinating to see the background of how everything came to be. From the beginnings being a very modest ship and continiously being enhanced until it became the almost sci-fi (for that time) exploration vessel. And how much Jaques Custeau had to work and invest to make it happen. How much he had to actually invent what we take for granted today.

The best fun-fact in my eyes was how not only the diesel and water tanks were expanded over time, but a wine-tank was added to the vessel. But that seems natural when you consider that the crew was French and they took multi-year journeys far away from good wine supply.

Yeah the wine tank sounded silly at first, but I think it makes a lot of sense with the number of bottles and weight you'd save.

Yes, it is crazy how much trash in form of bottles you generate with even modest but somewhat regular wine-drinking. For a whole crew of a ship that would be quite a logistical nightmare.

Also, as France is such a huge wine-producer, it is really easy to come by inexpensive good wines almost everywhere. That is not that easy in the rest of the world.

Having spent a little time on a French research ship in the 90's, I can believe th wine thing.

What people don't always grasp about Cousteau that he wasn't one of the first exploring the sea. He was _THE_ first. Before him people just didn't think about the deep sea at all. It was just there.

He (and his crew) literally invented a bunch of equipment still used today.

He and Emile Gagnan invented the scuba diving regulator used today. Before that was either a hose or snorkeling.

If he was the first to explore, then who was using the hose already?

Mostly industrial and military use, exploration per se wasn't something done - not like today, and not popularised to general population like today.

Cousteau also was big on conservation of the environment, something that apparently came out from his earlier ventures that were funded by oil industry.

He also always wanted to make movies, so he found the perfect match in making movies about the sea and diving =)

Wes Anderson did a wonderful movie about a very melancholic Cousteau pastiche, played by Bill Murray – The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Of course there is a Calypso equivalent in the movie, the Belafonte. Here is a tour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1RnYfFZK2k

I was hoping someone would mention this. That movie is a flat-out delight. See if you can spot the actor who played "Harold" in "Harold and Maude".

If you're at all interested in the source material for Zissou, I would highly recommend watching the 70s-era documentaries:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6J1OzLHamQ8TdX5j2w3L...

My father got me the toy scale model of Calypso on a trip to Europe, possibly '77. Had a little sub and everything.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1a/78/e3/1a78e36fcf4d74beedbf...

There are bunch of modern exploration vessels going (none with a JYC level explorer or educational purpose), mostly with funding from billionaires:

- https://nautiluslive.org/ - https://www.revocean.org/ - https://oceanx.org/oceanxplorer - https://schmidtocean.org/rv-falkor/ - https://www.whoi.edu/what-we-do/explore/ships/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Alucia

Also in one of the first Cousteau documentaries, a way to study marine life that didn't age well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHrlXY9Gd6c

If you want to see something you would never see in a modern documentary, this part of his Academy Award-winning first documentary is something else. They hit a sperm whale calf with their ship, kill it to put it out of its misery, and then massacre the sharks that come to feast on the injured calf:

https://youtu.be/xT2nSz_k134?t=3060

And then ride some turtles...

If you want to know more about JYC, there was a recent feature film that I thought was quite good:

https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-odyssey

I used to watch this guy's exploits on TV when I was a kid. Very inspirational

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