Not just sport

After the war was over, Luigi Ferraro was purged for having joined the Social Republic and therefore lost his status as an Armed Officer and a PE teacher. However, thanks to his skills, he found work as a diver in 1946 in a firm that dealt with maritime recoveries. His role was to inspect the relics of interest to the company in advance. The following year, he modified a rebreather so that he could employ it with air and with an open circuit, and he used it to dive to a depth of 70 metres to collect sponges. Consequently, he met Egidio Cressi and started working for his new diving firm. This would become his profession. In the years that followed, he proposed various initiatives in order to increase awareness of underwater activities, yet never for personal profit. Others developed his ideas, expanded them and turned them into thriving industries.

IMAGES

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The fabric decompression tables utilised by Ferraro during his diving for professional sponge’s collecting
The fabric decompression tables utilised by Ferraro during his diving for professional sponge’s collecting