Coffee Table Book of: The Sport of Diving (Paperback)

Description

Coffee Table Book of: The Sport of Diving is a large format book of diving, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: springboards and high platforms, deep pools seen from above, towels and chamois, the gear being made and cared for, old bathing places, and a few divers seen far off in plain dark clothing.

The kit is laid out plain: the gritty tip of a springboard, the wheel that sets its spring, the hinge and handrails behind it, a close cut suit on a hook, a chamois and a towel, wrist tape and pool slides, the sprays and bubbles that soften the water, and the trampolines, belts and dry boards of training on land.

The care follows a springboard given a fresh gritty coat, a trampoline bed of woven straps, towels and chamois hung to dry, and a pool brushed, skimmed, tested and drained. The past runs from wooden springboards and knitted wool suits to river, lake and beach stages, tidal sea pools, a seaside pier, old public baths, a vaulting horse from the gymnasium and the stepped concrete stages of the open air pools.

Then the places, empty at every hour and in every season: indoor halls at first light, dusk and night, outdoor pools in fog, rain, frost, snow and moonlight, sea cliffs and quarries, a river gorge, a sinkhole and a waterfall pool, and a few small divers far off, rising from the board, holding a handstand on the edge and entering the water with almost no splash.

Short notes run through the book, on the gear and how it works, the water and weather divers watch, and the history of the sport: modern springboards are aluminium boards about five metres long, light and very springy, early springboards were long planks of wood, heavier and less lively than modern boards, a wheel rolls the fulcrum under a springboard, making the board stiffer or springier, and sprays ruffle the water so that divers high above can see where the surface lies.

Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a paperback.