1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to amphibious and submersible scuba gear transport devices. More particularly, it concerns devices used in making beach-entry scuba dives by assisting the diver to transport scuba tanks and other diving gear from paved or otherwise man-improved surfaces, across intervening sand, gravel, rocks, or other like natural terrains; namely, between their starting point (i.e. car, dive shop, etc) and their entry point into the water—and also, the return (but not necessarily reverse) trip.
2. Description of the Prior Art
For years it has been well known that sailors go down to the sea in ships, and divers go down in the sea with airtanks. One unconsidered and unaddressed problem has been: how do those airtanks and divers get to the sea?
Perhaps—no, probably—the question was long unconsidered because the original pioneers who used Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (‘SCUBA’ tanks) were young, extra-ordinarily muscular and healthy men, almost entirely members of Underwater Demolition Teams or other military elites such as the SEALS, SOGs, and their equivalents in this and other nations. These young, fit men muscled their gear from the offloading point to the waves in a straightforward, earnest, and (let's be honest) unimaginative fashion.
Over the decades, however, scuba-diving became a far more broad-spread participatory sport. Divers no longer need to be extraordinarily fit—or male, with the upper-body lifting and torso strength bias of that sex. Divers could start from well-equipped dive boats, from municipal piers extending into the water; or with another diver such as a paid instructor or divemaster helping them through the process (including in that help, taking on the chore and effort of getting the gear to the shoreline). In fact many people that are considered disabled are now turning to diving; because the weightlessness they experience while in the water enables them to participate in a sport just like anyone else. Once, that is, someone else solves the problem of their not being able to carry their equipment to the water. For many who are not SEALs or more-than-normally fit and strong, shore diving is still just a dream. Because the SCUBA tanks and other gear (regulator, Buoyancy Control Device or ‘BCD’, dive weights, fins, waterproof cameras, lights, snorkel, etc. etc.) seem to have a very high irreducible minimum, starting at 50 and going upwards to 100 pounds.
While many marine dives using scuba gear (which includes airtanks and other gear) are made from boats, it is also common to make such dives from beaches or other land areas; these are generally called ‘beach entry dives’. Normally beach entry dives involve transporting the scuba gear in an automobile or like transport as close to the water's edge as possible, precisely because the scuba gear is both weighty and awkward to carry. This difficulty may be accentuated by the diver's needing to wear a bulky neoprene suit (‘wet’ or ‘dry’, depending) in the water; since such suits if worn on land, particularly while engaging in muscular activity, can create the risk of heatstroke due to their considerable (and necessary) insulation. Far too often no automobile can be driven closer than several hundred meters to the water—sometimes due to legal restrictions, sometimes due to terrain limitations—requiring a diver to carry the scuba tanks and other gear first to and then over the beach to the water's edge. This also commonly requires multiple trips back and forth. While it is nice for would-be divers that formerly pristine and untenanted, or at least unvisited, beaches are now much more often accessible; a sad reality is that the same accessibility increases the risk that any gear left on the beach while the diver is underwater, or making one of many trips back and forth from the car, may be taken by other, less aquatically-inclined but more acquisitively-inclined beachgoers. Also, it is common to encounter currents, or experience navigation errors, while underwater that displace the diver so her exit point is not where her entry point was, separating her from any gear left on shore at the entry point.
The fact remains that scuba-gear still is weighty and difficult to carry; and diving from ‘just any beach’ still requires someone to muscle the mass over the terrain without any assistance. Traversing rocks, gravel, and dry or wet sand—or combinations of the above encountered when trying to reach an unimproved, i.e. natural beach—while carrying that weight, is both a considerable effort and a task that can (through a single mis-step) go awry and prematurely end a planned dive, due to a badly-twisted ankle, scraped skin from an unbalanced fall, pulled muscles (especially in the back), or having a muscle accidentally bruised or crushed between the gear and the ground. This limitation is one of the reasons why many divers even now find daunting the idea of managing an unpaved, and even untracked, land-to-shoreline dive when they have to travel over natural terrain, even if that distance is only between 3 blocks and a ½ mile. Besides, it's just so much easier if a boat carries the dratted weight of the scuba gear!
This invention addresses that problem. As necessity—or at least strong interest—is the mother of invention, it is perhaps understandable that the inventor, being female, decided to use her brain instead of her brawn to tackle the problem of transferring scuba gear over the verge between land and sea. Being a scuba instructor and experienced in the fact that divers often come to shore a considerable distance from where they start out, she also recognized that the transportation device needed to be as portable, via the intervening sea passage, as the scuba gear itself, since it had to accompany both diver and gear. Because, being also both thrifty, and aware of the potential limitations on the honesty of those remaining on-shore while the diver frolics in the oceanic or at least aquatorial experience, she recognized that the solution should not depend on leaving either the scuba gear, or carrying means, resting untended at one point on the shoreline while traversing to the location of the other, lest it ‘disappear’ with the connivance and through the effort of a loose-moraled interloper.
The present embodiment of the invention disclosed in this application addresses those problems and solves them. It considers and solves, as well, some of the associated and secondary issues that would arise from a too-straight application of what might seem to be obvious alternatives. The absence of any like solution to what has been a problem since the first prototype SCUBA tank and regulator was used, nearly three-score and ten years ago, strongly evidences that this invention, meeting that long-felt need, is hardly as ‘obvious’ as it may appear in a hindsight-driven evaluation of potential combinations. There are a number of inventions in this field and a number of non-patent commercial devices, all of which comprise the prior art in what is a surprisingly-busy field. But the simple question is: as all of those combinations were feasible for all of that intervening time, why didn't anybody else who was a diver, put two and two and two together, and come up with the same ‘six’ found in the present invention?
For example, Checa, F. et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,341,789) teach a variation on the ancient ox-cart design of Babylonian times, adapted to transport of scuba gear via the hand-cart, dolly, and two-wheeled handcarts of intervening periods. Given the use of considerable amount of metal and complete lack of any interest in streamlining, it is obvious that this invention was never considered for amphibious use, but was to be left on the shore.
Davis, G. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,704,624) teach a more complex “scuba gear cart” than Checa's, chiefly through having multiple “conveying surfaces”—each such surface specifically designed to handle “a particular surface material over which the cart is moved”. Despite its complex structure and fittings (eye hooks, sidewalls, keel, hull, surface troughs, etc.), this cart is left behind on the shore, as the patent states through ellipsis—the dive operation takes place entirely between one paragraph and the next. The concept of amphibious use to carry (via the hull, acting as its own boat) is present, yet in such fashion that the inventor entirely denies the concept, or at least desirability, of submergibility.
Fuller, M. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,511,846) teaches a muscle-based—pardon, a strap-based carrier for a scuba tank only, that, while being itself amphibious and submersible, entirely leaves the cross-terrain transportation of the scuba tank in the carrier to the user's muscles and balance. Given the relative massiveness and heft of a scuba tank alone (begging entirely the non-addressed issue of the other necessary scuba gear), the patented ‘convenience’ is rather blithely asserted—though an indirect acknowledgement of some further problem(s) is made as the patent speaks of that invention's assisting “in resisting abrasion when the tank is dragged on an abrasive surface”. This patent is a continuation-in-part of the same inventor's earlier-issued patent (U.S. Pat. No. 5,423,586) that reveals no material differences relative to the present invention.
Stadler, L. et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,492,346) teach a wheel-based, solid-cover tote container—actually, a “pull-cart specially adapted for transporting scuba tanks”. The intention that this be non-amphibious and not accompany the diver can be readily ascertained, as the specification highlights as a feature the fact that “prior art devices do not include a locking mechanism to prevent undesired access to equipment which may be left on a beach during a dive”.
Ross, S. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,393,080) teaches a tank dolly that has both amphibious and submersible features, but incorporates as major elements both rigid side rails with a plurality of handles, and flanges providing an enabling, travois-style means for dragging the scuba tank over obstructions or steps, as it states: “The tank dolly thus comprises the cup 14, guards 20, wheels 22, and rails 16”.
Clements, D. et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,131,670) teach an overground and thus non-amphibious (and of course non-submersible, aside from quicksand or bog) wheeled cart with elongate or relatively-movable axles. Their invention definitely “can be readily removed at such time as the tank is ready to be utilized for a dive”.
Tecca, F. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,832,398; a continuation in part of U.S. Pat. No. 4,754,996) teaches a strap-based scuba tan carrier and holder, that depends on the user's muscles for cross-terrain transport and is neither amphibious nor submersible. The user leaves this device behind during the dive, as can be inferred from the statement in the specification, “When the driver has completed his diving and is ready to return his equipment to the vehicle, he removes the tank from his harness and places it in the carrier holder and straps it in place.”
Henderson, R. et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,815,761) teaches a roller unit to help transport the scuba gear and then serve as the surface floating platform for the diver(s); yet this incorporates an element (“a buoyant roller”) whose specific function is to keep the unit floating on top of the water to serve as the “offshore work and flag platform” (for the dive flag, to signal the diver's presence to boaters), one of the principle objects of that invention. This invention definitively teaches against making the transport device submersible. Any device one leaves at the surface needs to remain attached to the diver which limits the diver to short depths and absolutely no “penetration” into a wreck or cave. This type of diving is rarely done, and this type of equipment would most likely only be useful to a Scuba Instructor while they are teaching their students—which is done in shallow depths and with a floating device and flag.
Rolling luggage is a common sight in most airports, and many hotels and motels. The size of such luggage ranges considerably, including even a duffel bag advertised as suitable for transporting scuba gear; cf. the “Tilos Guardsman Duffel Roller Bag Transport Scuba Surf or Sports Gear”, findable at http://www.amazon.com/Tilos-Guardsman-Duffel-Roller-Transport/dp/B000LSZ18K. As the attached photo discloses, however, the amphibian, submersible, and streamlining qualities of this product are dubious at best. This device is for transporting dive gear to a boat or for non-aquatic (ground/air) luggage. These have small, imbedded, “roller blade” type wheels that would not roll at all in wet or dry sand, from which one can tell that this product was never made to be used on the beach.
The hand-cart in a ‘beach-suitable’ form is also known; cf. the “Beach/Pool/Scuba Cart” findable at http://beachstuf.com/BeachCart.html. Again, as the attached photo disclosed, the amphibian, submersible, and streamlining qualities of this product are patently absent.
A primitive ‘wheeled platform with straps’ is known, cf. the ‘Travel Buddy’ findable at any of http://www.tortugascuba.com/travelbuddy.html, http://www.tortugascuba.com/buddyII.html, or http://www.tortugascuba.com/travelsolo.html. A complete absence of streamlining, even if the quality of submergibility is conceded, makes this unsuitably awkward at best, and generally unmanageable (particularly given any wave action or current) for in-dive usage by a scuba diver. All descriptions indicate that this device was made to be left on shore. Crossing the wave-zone wearing this broad flange could even be hazardous with even moderate wave action (4′ crests).
A variation of the hand-cart designed solely for the scuba airtank is known; cf. the “Scuba Tank n Tow” findable at http://www.overstock.com/Sports-Toys/Scuba-Tank-n-Tow/1135978/product.html; which is also described in Knox, D. et al. (US 2005/0236789A1, filed Apr. 27, 2004; published Oct. 27, 2005). While both submersible and arguably amphibious, it is aimed at transporting “cylindrical tanks”; it will not assist with the transport of any other gear—and an airtank, alone, while necessary, is not sufficient, as divers are not naturally fitted with either buoyancy control devices or reducing valves!