My first actual job was at Divers Service Center in Puerto Rico. This was in 1971. I had been a certified diver for just a couple of months; and was 14 years old at the time. Before working at DSC I traded some stuff for some scuba gear. One piece of gear was a used Royal Aqua Master regulator (I still own that RAM). In the early 70’s everyone talked about the double hose regulators being the top choice, but I never actually saw anyone else diving one. I serviced a few for customers, but it seemed like they never came back to pick them up. I worked at DSC on an off during my summer breaks even during my college years. I have also worked on a few other dive shops. In 1980 I graduated from college with degrees in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering. Around 2004, I was living in Maine, enjoying winter sports and white water kayaking. I hadn’t been diving in years, but I had been thinking about it. Circumstances made me decide to get back into it. I had a lot of my old gear, but it needed service. I did a search on the internet and discovered that what I thought of as my old gear was now considered vintage and it was very desirable. Among my things, I still had my old round label Royal Aqua Master. It was missing its label, I didn’t have a duckbill, and I actually had converted it to an Aqua Master because the hard rubber seats of the 70’s were not as reliable as the Aqua Master seats. I found a vintage group and I ended up going to a gathering at Lake Wazee in Wisconsin, were I met Bryan and others. I bought from Bryan a RAM first stage body to convert my RAM back to its original configuration. During the transaction Bryan mentioned that he would love to have many more of the RAM bodies. The modern parts for the Conshelf (same as RAM) were very reliable and easily obtained. He mentioned that if we had more RAM bodies we could convert many DA Aqua Masters to good functioning regulators with easily available parts. After that conversation and the long desire to add HP ports to the RAM, I asked Bryan if he would like me to design what ended up being the Phoenix. The prototypes only had HP ports, but by moving some things around I was able to lay it out with the HP and LP ports. A number of years later I designed a second stage to convert the Voit Titan into a double hose regulator (which I called the Pegasus). Similar in principle to the Voit Trieste, but the details of the second stage took many more advantages from some other newer single hose second stages. From the Pegasus second stage evolved the HPR second stage to retrofit the Phoenix RAM, RAM or DA-AM type of regulator. All these parts (the HPR, the Phoenix design, etc) have come together and with the idea that we don’t want to continue cannibalizing vintage regulators, it was time to put it all together into a complete regulator (the Argonaut). The regulator combines well proven features from a number of regulators with a few totally new ideas. It follows the design philosophy of being backward-compatible with some of the parts of the well-established Phoenix RAM and RAM regulators, but it introduces a number of improvements.

Behind every project are people doing amazing things that make it succeed. Herman is the one on this project in spades! No matter what we asked of him the answer was always YES. He fixed, re-tooled, improvised and improved everything that was thrown at him. Many times I was beyond frustration and out of ideas.....Sent him countless E-mails rambling on and on about the problems I was having in my ADHD fashion.....A few days later he would reply with a solution and ask how many of them I wanted....Full time job, part time job at the dive shop and always had time to help on the project.The Argonaut would not be where it is today without his skill and patience.

These brave souls took testing of the Argonaut Kraken from rough unproven prototype to streamlined production model. From tropical waters to the icy cold depths they provided invaluable input and feedback to the project. Herman Mowrey-- Allan Klauda-- Rob Studnicka-- Jim Bach-- Ron S-- James Williams

Everyone listed here helped me in ways great and small and I could not have done it without them. I'm very fortunate to have such great people to work with. The Dirty Dozen who believed in the project when it was still in brass......Clint Walker 3D Designs......Diamond Dave Ali.....Mark J Spencer.....William Baker Web Designs.....Wayne at Amigos Dive Center........Joe Henke.... Cathy......Kathy.....Morley....James S...Scuba Club Cozumel......Please accept my apologizes if I missed anyone.

Thank you for taking time to review and consider the new Argonaut Kraken it has been a labor of love since the start and reflects the passion and dedication the team and I have for the history and future of double hose diving. If you have questions please send me an E-mail Bryan@vintagedoublehose.com