Pierre Becker - The Z dimension

Diver, navigator, aviator, designer, geologist: at 53 years old, Pierre Becker kept the wonders of a teenager. Boss of the submarine works company Géocéan based in Aubagne, former defector of Comex, he is constantly inventing extraordinary machines and some do not hesitate to compare him to Leonardo da Vinci, even if his achievements seem to come from the adventures of "Blake and Mortimer". Portrait of a diver who has  lead in the head…

The water is black, thick, with a taste of ancient rust that you can feel falling in evil curls from the dislocated frames. No visibility: sunk in the depths of the third deck of the wreck, my eyes are at my fingertips. The only thing that keeps me hanging on to life is this hiss of air in the umbilical which also gets stuck at all times in sharp angles that tear my gloves. From time to time, a metallic shock: a collapsing beam, disturbed by air bubbles and cutting the way back? Or one of my colleagues who works with the water lance, very close, and yet so far from any help? Unless my bottle hit a corroded shell, one that is part of the 90 tons of ammunition that we have pledged to get out of the wreckage of the  Primauguet, for the construction of the new port of Casablanca.

Mine clearance in cloudy water

A new “explosive” contract for our very young Géomines subsidiary, which deals, among other things, with mine clearance at sea, but also with countries where conflicts have allowed the terrible anti-personnel mines to germinate in the ground, responsible for so many children living in bellies. foot…

I always used to accompany my guys on operations, but in the Primauguet, I admit that I was scared… Whatever, the 90 tons of shells were soon assembled and sunk in deep waters. . Perhaps you will think about it when you approach in the new port of Morocco… We are currently working in Le Havre where it is a question this time of defusing 2000 bombs…

I am part of a family of 5 rather “mixed” children. I was born in Tunisia to a Swiss father who lived in Morocco and to an Italian mother living in Algeria. It was my mother the most "adventurous" since she piloted planes and had also become champion of Tunisia of spearfishing. This shows to what extent we were steeped in Mediterranean culture, with perhaps Swiss precision in addition.

Birth of a vocation

My father having been in charge of the construction of the new port of Fos sur Mer, we had to emigrate to the Camargue, to Port St Louis du Rhône. It was there that at 11, I discovered the film "20 places under the sea" with Kirk Douglas' fabulous fight against a giant squid, armed with his only harpoon, and shortly after, diving "for real. ":" Le Monde du Silence "by Jacques Yves Cousteau, who at the time revolutionized our conception of the sea. One day I had to go and see for myself ...

In the meantime, I poached soles with a fork, climbed on horseback, and invented adventures in a boat in the middle of the labyrinths of Camargue reeds.

And then, at 14, my passion for sailing came to me with the writings of Moitessier, Toumelin, Gerbault, and especially Tabarly who had just won his first transatlantic.

My dad then gave me a wonderful gift: a Star (a sloop also called an Olympic keelboat since it was part of the sporting events). To be honest, it was a wreck. But in two years, no longer counting the bruises, bumps, and splinters, I have come to own a real gem. My first boat!

I was a pretty bad student and, at the time, we were headed straight for a technical high school. This is where I learned everything, however: woodworking, metalwork, electricity, resourcefulness ... I have always liked to collect myself in the raw way to obtain something beautiful, d 'successful, precise.

When I was 17, I had my first adventure: joining my boat Port St Louis du Rhône and Marseille, all in 5 hours! I had not yet read Maupassant's “Sur l'eau”, which was used to such “exploits”. I threw myself headlong into sailing, winning a few races. I even sailed with Baron Bic.

I learned a lot from nature during these solitary trips. The movement of the stars, the stars, the variations of the wind, the currents, the flora, the fauna: all this changing nature of which we are often the ignorant spectator, when we are not interested in its immutable laws. I have always known how to sail under the stars, and I then rediscovered the sensations of the first sailors ...

But already, I was working on the third dimension of space: the "famous Z". Most people move in a plane, X and Y, on land or at best on water. But I was attracted by what was above, in the air, the cosmos and all that allowed to reach it: planes, balloons, telescopes and kites. Ah, how many have I built of these flying machines, most of which were content to plow the neighbor's field!

And of course, I was also passionate about what was happening below the X, Y plane: the underground world and especially the underwater universe, then in full exploration ...

A good tip for diving

My first foray into the water I made when I was 13 from the jetty, having stolen the garden hose from the house. A cork float on the surface, a snorkel tip attached to the end of the pipe, and a pig made of a large stone held in the hand. I sink like a stone and of course from the past surface, I breathe so much that I tear my lungs and suffocate! I discovered that day that it was impossible to breathe below the surface by this process but it took me a while to understand why! Who says diving seemed to me to have a relation with the gas pressure ...

For my second attempt, I hired my little sister. This time, I had added the chimney bellows to the system and my sister, half consenting, was in charge of vigorously activating the machine, supposed to feed my flame, while I went to look for lobsters. And it worked! Except when my sister sometimes stopped pumping out of weariness… It was at this time that I had to improve my apnea… When my father heard about it, I was treated to a hell of a brawl. But since the worm was in the fruit, and he was a good father, he introduced me to one of the guys who worked at the port, the Portail diver. "Monsieur Portail". Very quickly this one made me dive with him, with the old Cousteau Gagnan regulators of the time. We could breathe in Morse code: a gulp of air, a gulp of water… Scrap iron, bridge piles, mud on all floors, but this spectacle and this sensation were well worth all the coral reefs in the world. It was the revelation. So, I took lessons in a Marseille club until I became a real diver, while continuing my geology studies for 4 years at university.

Alice or the swell

And then I fell in love with Alice. A wonderful woman who took me every day to her wonderland. Only one flaw in my eyes: it couldn't stand boats. But then not at all! It's not for lack of trying, but the hiccups were decidedly too loud and our boat often looked like a trawler baiting…

A loan for a vomit, I made her promise that she would let me go on a solo sailing round the world for my 50th birthday, in order to bury my life as a "boy of the seas". In fact, I was content with a transatlantic crossing between Tenerife and Tobago, in 21 days. But that remains my best experience.

Who dreams of Z and wants to earn a living with the sea no longer has much choice… When I finished my geology studies in 68, Comex was just 5 years old. I had only one dream: to meet the already legendary “cowboy” CEO, Henri.Germain. Delauze, and work with him. I stayed there for 14 years and am proud to be part of the “heroic Comexiens”. This is the time when we invented and experimented with deep mixing dives. I also learned everything about the offshore oil industry, in "impossible" countries ...

In 1984, thirsty for independence, I created Géocéan. Delauze let me go and encouraged me, on condition that I became a shareholder in this new company, in which he now holds 10% of the capital. Strangely enough, there was no company in France capable of providing expertise on the seabed. A niche market combining geology, diving and drilling.

We thus participated in the mapping of the bottom of the Channel for the boring of the famous tunnel. This represented more than 150 core samples between France and England. We were handling 10-ton machines, capable of sinking a core 30 meters under the sea floor.

Among other things, we have also connected the islands of Saintes and Désirade to Guadeloupe with a drinking water pipeline.

Total then entrusted us with the construction of an oil pipeline passing over “several bridges”. In fact, it was a question of crossing 19 valleys of the Burmese jungle towards Thailand, in full revolt of the Karen. Guaranteed atmosphere, like "The Bridge over the River Kwai." "...

It's a job where you can lose your shirt but also earn a lot of money. $ 3 million, to be precise, for having been able to recover a deposit of gold nuggets in 150m of water in the west of New Zealand.

A baptism in the Persian Gulf

When you think about it, diving is not that difficult. I remember a construction site in the Zakum of the Persian Gulf. We had to put 10 pipe-line anchors on the seabed, but we were constantly distracted by manta rays playing with the bubbles. Huge schools of barracudas hid under the barges' shadows as beautifully colored but deadly snakes swarmed the coral. We were piloting what we call a chaser, a sort of big tank to put the straps and suddenly, the breakdown. It was a very specialized machine and no diver on the job could get it to start again. We were then losing $ 000 a day! Using the BLU on board, I managed to reach the supplier, the Montabert company in St Priest, near Lyon. They promised to send me a technician and, better than Darty, he was there the next day, a little shaken by the trip. Jean Noël Roche, I will remember all my life the look he made when he realized that the broken down chaser was underwater: he could not dive!

Finally, I decided to initiate it on the spot. Dry clothing, harness, umbilical, heavy helmet with telephone, and two parallel ladders leading to the water. The idea was to go down together, inch by inch while talking about things and others. Everything worked well until the water covered his helmet. We parleyed for half an hour, without him realizing that he was really underwater and that I was leading him with a firm hand towards the broken down machine. As soon as he saw it, the metamorphosis was complete: he was once again the competent technician and was circling around the machine, as comfortable as if he had been in his workshop. At his request, in the middle of clouds of tropical fish, the other divers passed him tools, straps, electric cables: an operating room scene and it is true that that day, there was Emergency! Jean Noël immediately returned to France, delighted with his experience.

Groupers be who badly thinks about it

A friend of mine, close to the Aga Khan, told me one day of the heiress's strong taste for groupers. While cruising in the Mediterranean, she wanted to dive in Corsica. We do not refuse a princess dream and off we go for “Mérouville” aboard the Shergar, a yacht whose luxury and size are impossible to describe to me as I would pass for a Marseillais. Accustomed to blocks with reserve I decided to use my new manometer, despite the warnings of my friend "leave, it's m ..." At twenty meters deep, in the middle of moray eels and giant groupers, I don't I only have eyes for the princess that I, the “great diving professional”, am responsible for overseeing. So much so that I forget to control my air and soon find myself running out of air like a beginner. The princess in good hands, I make a sign to my boyfriend that I rush back upstairs. In front of the immense wall and white as a shroud of the yacht, I have no other recourse than to cling to the enormous anchor chain. With the current, I get out of breath, I have enough time to snap into my carabiner, and I faint. I woke up just before the end of their dive, and my honor was saved because no one noticed anything ...

Planes under the sea

My other great passion is aeronautics. I am also in the process of making a mechanical goose that flies while beating its wings ... But sometimes planes join the waves and I have always been interested in plane wrecks. With Philippe Castellano, we scoured the French Riviera and found a lot of wreckage. Since the history of the chain of Saint Exupéry, I can even say that we have put together the smallest piece of P38, and found some of their pilots like James Riley. It's my hobby and the all too rare times when I dive for fun. And then, what stories in these objects he tells me while handling an old rusty radio. He shows whoever wants his odds and ends of twisted and concreted metal, staged behind a black curtain in his workshop in Aubagne. In this Ali Baba cave, we also find sketches, models, automatic “drone” vehicles capable of carrying out analyzes at sea, transmitting them and returning to their home port. In fact, Becker keeps inventing and his pensive eye always has a dream ahead. His latest project: Sea Orbiter in collaboration with Jacques Rougerie. A composite structure placed in the sea, drifting with the current around the world, that NASA intends to use as a training base for future Martian missions. Project cost: $ 20 million ...

The adventure of fresh water

In 1970 I participated in the construction of the underground dam of Port Miou, a strong resurgence of fresh water from the creeks of Marseille. Coming from oil, I found it exhilarating to try to recover fresh water from under the sea. And then, five years ago, near the Greek port of Itea, I saw a herd of goats quench their thirst in the sea. ! I drank in my turn, and noticed that the water was soft: the underwater sources seemed not to be an exception in the Mediterranean… So this very simple idea came to me: why not try to recover this water? The Phoenicians were already doing it 3000 years ago on the island of Ruad, Syria to supply the city of Amrit. In Antiquity, Greek sailors refueled with fresh water without docking, by recovering fresh water from underwater sources using turned and weighted amphoras. They were undoubtedly the first divers ...

I then created Nymphéa Water and with a few enthusiasts we built a prototype. It was a plastic half-sphere 8 meters in diameter, looking like a jellyfish. After being moored to the bottom, it unfolds underwater like an umbrella. A sleeve fitted to the source channels fresh water, less dense than salt water, to the top of the bell. The jellyfish gradually inflates. It only remains to pump this water, the salt content of which varies according to the source, but sufficiently pure for irrigation. A treatment makes it possible to bring it back to the rate of 0,5g / liter or it is considered drinkable.

Our first tests took place at the source of the Mortolla, off the coast of Menton. Very quickly, many countries were interested. We are currently prospecting in Spain, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Israel, Djibouti, Yemen, countries for which forecasts indicate a serious water shortage by 2025. Our system has evolved to be more sustainable, and permanently fixed on underwater sources.

Sea water is of course free and our inexpensive system has a lifespan of 40 years. After treating this slightly brackish water, we arrive at a cost price of around $ 0,5 per liter, which is half the price of seawater desalination plants.

Why Nymphéa? Oh… I have always admired Monet's painting; its purity; the impression of peace that emerges from it. And then, in Cyprus, I visited a place where it is said that the goddess came out of the waters… In my turn, I wanted to create my “white water lily”. The world needs water: I would like to give it this blue gold. This water so fundamental which can, depending on its abundance, cause war or peace ... Today, the oil fields are more than 3000 m away and human intervention is no longer possible: it is the reign of robots. Fresh water, this is the new challenge for professional divers.

Rather than white gold, Pierre Becker still prefers to talk about Z. A Z for Azur.

Interview by Francis Le Guen

The original article that I had once published in the fire Divers International, masterfully laid out by the divine Stephanie Richard.