COMEX · Compagnie Maritime d’Expertise · Reference
The COMEX Story
Delauze was born in the South of France in 1929. He was an engineer and at 20 years old leaves for his military service, where he begins to dive.
Later in France, he used his skill learned at the military and worked for French companies specialized in diving equipment and undersea works. He met the Commandant Cousteau and worked for him in several undersea excavations in the 1950’s.
Delauze continued to work on construction of the “Tunnel of La Havana” and worked in a secret mission for the US Army.
At a later time, he graduated at Berkeley and crossed the world for his job: Guinea, Algeria, San Diego.
This gave him a deep understanding of the future needs in terms of undersea work. This led him to create in 1961 the Compagnie Maritime d’Expertise in Marseille (COMEX). At that time, Yuri Gagarin was travelling around the earth at 300 km of altitude but none dared to travel over 70 m under the sea.
Delauze and COMEX ran an incredible industrial and human challenge: the conquest of the depths.
Their hyperbaric boxes simulated the conditions of life under the sea. COMEX improved them, as well as the gas mixtures and the equipment.
Depth Records
As they gained more experience and technology, the records were all broken:
Ludion · 1966–68
120 m in hyperbaric box
Physalie · 1968–72
610 m in box
Janus I · 1968
4 divers at 150 m — 14 hours of work
Janus II · 1970
3 divers — 34 hours of work at 250 m
Janus IV · 1977 — World Record
6 divers simulating work at 460 m — 2 of them reached 501 m ★ World Record
In the 1970s, after the “oil crisis,” thousands of offshore platforms grew all over the world and COMEX was almost the only one able to repair or work on them. COMEX purchased boats, barges, and bathyscaphes.
It also had an R&D centre, a simulation centre, 2,000 employees (800 divers) operating all over the world.
COMEX in Pictures
Pic 1
Delauze in 1950 — the beginning of the diving story.
Pic 2
Delauze in 1963.
Pic 3
The CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) will entrust him the Archimede during the next 5 years.
Pic 4
Physalie in 1969 with Dr Brauer — 335 m.
Pic 5
Hyperbaric experimental center.
Pic 6
EMS 600, built by Creusot Loire — 3 hyperbaric boxes, air and water. The most sophisticated in the world.
Pic 7
COMEX invents and builds almost everything.
Pic 8
The Seabex One — autonomous boat for 16 divers.
Pic 9
Barge “Uncle Joe.”
Pic 10
The DSV Talisman at 275 m.
Pics 11–16 · Working in Deep Water
Pic 11
Pic 12
Pic 13
Pic 14
Pic 15
Pic 16
Pic 17
The Janus IV team in October 1977 — 501 meters!! World Record.