Porpoise (scuba gear) Porpoises still exist. Only a few of these early models are known today, the rarest being the CA-2, made for use with two tanks. Porpoise (scuba gear) Porpoise is a tradename for scuba developed by Ted Eldred in Australia and made there from the late 1940s onwards. The first Porpoise was a closed circuit oxygen rebreather, and the following models were all single hose open circuit regulators. This rebreather was developed by Ted Eldred in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Some were made and used for sport diving, but they did not go into full production. It was worn
Aqua Lung/La Spirotechnique coined by Cousteau himself on that purpose. In the USA during World War II the American military physician Christian J. Lambertsen designed a wartime frogman's rebreather which in 1952 got called the SCUBA (acronym for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus), and later the name (changing to 'scuba' and treated as a word) was used to mean any underwater breathing set. In Britain the word "aqualung" became a generic trademark for open-circuit underwater breathing sets and stayed so for many years. The word "scuba" became the generic word quickly in the USA and eventually in Britain. For more information see Aqua-lung#Trademark issues.