The Historical Diving Society of Sweden, Svenska Dykerihistoriska Förening (SDF), is worlds oldest such society. It was founded in 1979. It managed to get hold of a building called the Dive Tank House, “Dyktankhus”, that was used as a training and research station in the Kalärvarvet submarine fleet base. In the building there was a dive tank for submarine escape training. There was also a hyperbaric chamber for research purposes and a steam generator. Hot steam was used to maintain the operation readiness of submarines. Today the building houses a museum of diving history maintained by SDF.
A number of photographs from Dyktankhuset can be viewed below. The place is worth a visit but you are encouraged to check the opening times in advance. This museum is in the immediate vicinity of the Wasa museum.
Outside the Dyktankhus ones attention is drawn to two outlandish items. They grey “Svea” was part of the submarine support vessel Belos’es equipment. It is a rescue vessel used to extract crew from submarines unable to resurface. The blue tank on the other hand is an ordinary normobaric (1atm) observation chamber. Hence all the windows.One of the items in Dyktankhus, a wooden open helmet built by Ekholm brothers in 1944. Notice how the ends of a cast iron bench from a park have found a new life as dive weights sinking this rather floaty piece of kit. The Ekholm brothers did not have access to lead. Historical Diving Society of Finland made a replica of this diving helmet using the original drawings and occasionally dives with it.“Portable hyperbaric chamber” in the collections of Dyktankhus. We know that the Finnish navy had a similar one, but assumably it has been scrapped.This corner in Dyktankhus displaying a replica of a 16th century diving bell and a diving dress made of elk skin marked the beginning of Historical Diving Society of Finland and the annual Day of Diving.
