Solo diving II. In the late 1940s, after the invention of the Aqua-lung by Cousteau and Gagnan, the first retail underwater breathing apparatus for sport was commercially marketed. As the sport expanded through the 1950s, several sporting organisations – notably the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) – began scuba training programmes for swimming enthusiasts, thus began the codification of what was believed to be proper practices for the expanding amateur sport of scuba diving. The buddy system was thought to be a useful corollary to the "never swim alone" edicts of the YMCA swimming and lifesaving programmes. Cousteau independently implemented a buddy
Frédéric Dumas Frédéric Dumas Frédéric Dumas (14 January 1913 – 26 July 1991) was part of a team of three, with Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Philippe Tailliez, in which he was nicknamed Didi. They had a passion for diving, and developed the diving regulator with the aid of the engineer Émile Gagnan. Frédéric Dumas then participated with Jacques-Yves Cousteau in the discovery of the underwater world and in bringing it to the attention of the general public. Frédéric Dumas was born on 14 January 1913 in Albi. A pioneer of underwater fishing on the French Riviera, he met Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Philippe Tailliez