Buddy diving just before and after the Second World War. After the invention of the "aqualung" by Cousteau and Gagnan, the first commercially underwater breathing apparatus became available for sale for sporting purposes in the late 1940s. As the new sport of scuba diving rapidly expanded through the 1950s, several sporting organisations—notably the YMCA—began programmes to train swimming enthusiasts in this new aquatic pastime, and began to codify what they believed were proper practises for this expanding sport. The YMCA considered the buddy system a useful corollary to the "never swim alone" rule of their swimming and lifesaving programmes. Cousteau himself independently
Aqua Lung America Aqua Lung America Aqua Lung America (formerly U.S. Divers Company) is an American company based in Vista, California which makes scuba equipment. The company is a division of Aqua Lung International, which was, for most of its existence, a division of Air Liquide. Aqua Lung International was sold by Air Liquide to Montagu Private Equity by the end of 2016. After U.S. Divers Company was renamed Aqua Lung America, the name U.S. Divers was retained as a trademark for Aqua Lung's line of snorkelling equipment. The "Aqua-Lung" regulator was created by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Émile Gagnan in 1943. In 1946,