A family connection
The relationship between the Cousteau and Meistrell families dates back half a century, to a burglary of Cousteau aqualungs foiled by the Meistrell twins.
In 1956, Jacques Cousteau bought the manufacturing company U.S. Diver. To celebrate the event, he hosted a party for his dealers. As owners of Dive N’ Surf, the oldest dive shop in the country, Bob and Bill Meistrell were invited.
While leaving the party, Bob Meistrell recalled, “We saw some guys behind the hotel tossing regulators into the back of a truck. We thought, that’s no way to handle dive equipment. So we figured they were stealing them and we called security. Jacques thanked us and was always a very nice guy. We used to run into him at trade shows.”
Jean-Michel, the second generation of Cousteau watermen, became acquainted with Robbie Meistrell, the second generation of Meistrell watermen and Body Glove’s current CEO, through Robbie’s childhood friend Bobby Evans.
Evans grew up in Hermosa Beach and began working at Dive N’ Surf when he was 16. Bobby and Robbie spent so much time diving together in their youth that Bob Meistrell reminisced, “We had to make damn sure we didn’t adopt him.”
Evans was a mad inventor from youth. His first successful invention was a thick, aluminum “whacker spoon” for tenderizing abalone. Chef Julia Childs is pictured whacking an abalone in one of her cookbooks. It became a popular seller at Dive N’ Surf.
Another invention was a rear view mirror for divers. It led to a revolution in dive gear, though in a way no one could have foreseen. The mirror was such a bad idea that it prompted Bob Meistrell to admonish his young employee, “Why don’t you invent something useful, like a new dive fin.”
A decade later, in 1971, with Body Glove’s financial backing, Evans did. He called it the Force Fin. Its sculpted, translucent resin was an immediate and enduring aesthetic hit. The New York Museum of Modern Art added it to its permanent collection, and just last month it was exhibited in the Eames furniture show at the Los Angeles Architect and Design Museum.
The dive community was slower to appreciate the fin, whose unconventional design mimics the way water runs off leaves and the tails of marine mammals. For nearly three decades competitors and dive publications derided the design. Today, as a result of U.S.military tests proving their efficacy followed by large military orders, just about every major dive fin manufacturer has a Force Fin knockoff.
Evans met Cousteau the same year he invented the fin, but not because of the fin. The 26-year-old Brookings Institute of Photography graduate was exhibiting his still photos at an underwater film festival. The show’s emcee was particularly impressed by Evans’ photos because the emcee’s father had invented the Nikonos camera Evans worked with. Evans’ photos of the Redondo Canyon, Palos Verdes and Catalina would subsequently appear in several of Cousteau’s books.
But the two did not become friends until decades later, after Cousteau moved toSanta Barbara, where Evans manufactures his fins. Cousteau had followed the evolution of Evans’ Force Fins and one day in 2001 invited Evans to his office. He wanted Evans to design an aesthetically pleasing, and of course functional fin for his films’ dive teams.
Evans called the new design the Oscillating Propulsion System Fin, or OPS Fin. The fin had a rotate-able blade, allowing it to function like a bicycle derailleur.
Evans knew the fins worked when he went on a test dive with Cousteau and Cousteau’s chief dive officer Don Santee at the Cousteau eco-resort in Fiji.
“We ran into a strong head current, so, I bent over and clicked my fins into high gear. As I did it, I heard two other clicks and I looked over and saw Jean-Michel and Don doing the same thing,” Evans said.
The fins earned a prominent role in “The Voyage to Kure.”
