Oceanographer Fabien Cousteau puts his trust in a high-tech plastic

Swimming with Sharks

Oceanographer Fabian Cousteau emerges from an artifical white shark.

For Fabien Cousteau, grandson of the famous cinematographer Jacques Cousteau, it was a dream come true: With the aid of an artificial shark, he was able to swim among the ocean predators. His adventure was made possible by the Bayer material Makrolon®.

Steven Spielberg's horror movie "Jaws" has changed for ever the way people view sharks, and particularly great white sharks: as cruel, man-eating machines, savage and unpredictable. Its impact on Fabien Cousteau, however, was completely different. He was not afraid, just puzzled and confused. "The movie contradicted everything I knew as a child about sharks. It simply didn't make sense. White sharks don't crush boats to pieces."

$Sketch: The diagram shows how a diver controls the 4.30 meter long shark \"submarine\", which weighs 450 kg.$

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Sketch: The diagram shows how a diver controls the 4.30 meter long shark “submarine”, which weighs 450 kg.

The fact that the young Fabien Cousteau already knew so much about the sea and its inhabitants is not particularly surprising: His grandfather was the famous oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau. From the age of seven, he accompanied his grandfather on expeditions during the school holidays and learned how to dive. Through Fabien, Jacques Cousteau's message is thriving well into its third generation: Save the planet, the oceans first.

After he had seen the movie 'Jaws', Fabien Cousteau was determined that, when he was older, he would do something for sharks like his grandfather had done. "I'm not saying that sharks are cuddly animals," he explains. "And I'm not absolutely crazy about them. All I can say is that we must give them just as much respect as we do Bengal tigers. If we don't, there won't be any more sharks left in 40 or 50 years." For the oceanographer, that would be a catastrophe: marine diversity in the oceans would then be at serious risk.

A childhood dream: Underwater adventures in a shark submarine

To be able to protect sharks, it is necessary to understand how they live, think and feel, and why – in very rare cases – they attack humans. "So," thought Fabien Cousteau, "why not realize my childhood dream and experience an underwater adventure in a shark submarine like the comic-strip heroes Tintin and Snowy?"

Saving sharks: Qceanographer Fabian Cousteau continous the heritage of his famous grandfather Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

Finding the perfect partner for such a difficult undertaking was easy. Hollywood designer and engineer Eddie Paul had already built special devices for Fabien's grandfather and father: underwater headlights, helmets, camera accessories and, in 1989, an artificial white shark. Paul called his creation "Alison", and it was with this that Jean-Michel Cousteau set out to observe white sharks off the Australian coast, while Paul controlled Alison remotely from a shark cage. The experiment was a complete success. Alison was accepted by her "fellows", and Cousteau was able to study the sharks' normal behavior at his leisure. But he wanted to know more – like how they react in exceptional situations. So Paul made Alison twitch as if she was going to die. The sharks immediately changed their behavior. The biggest attacked Alison four times and tore large pieces from her body.

Sushi – just like the real thing

Inside a shark: Eddie Paul tests the model shark, whose backbone is made of flexible Makrolon® GP sheet.

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Inside a shark: Eddie Paul tests the model shark, whose backbone is made of flexible Makrolon® GP sheet.

Again, Cousteau left the planning to Eddie Paul. This time, Paul came up with the wittily named "Sushi", an artificial shark with a breastplate shaped like a cage and made of 6-cm-thick stainless steel and a backbone made of Makrolon GP polycarbonate sheet. This proven product from Sheffield Plastics Inc., an American Bayer MaterialScience company, has enormous advantages for the engineer: "It's extremely load-resistant and at the same time flexible." In other words, it has precisely the properties required for Sushi's backbone. It is flexible enough to enable the artificial shark to move exactly like a real one. It is fascinating to see how the animals, which are up to seven meters long and weigh more than a ton, can almost bite their own tail fins.

Basically, Sushi looks just like a real great white shark. The skeleton is covered in a skin-like material to simulate the surface of sharkskin. A motor that moves the tail fin back and forth propels Sushi silently forward through the water at a speed of five knots – around 9 km/h.

High-tech for unique photos

The oxygen supply for the diver is also pure high-tech - it employs a system used by the United States army. It is completely silent and produces no air bubbles. Fabien Cousteau explains why this is so important: "Bubbles generate noise that the sharks can feel and hear. That affects their behavior. They don't produce any bubbles themselves because they inhale and exhale water."

Sushi: Eddie Paul's team presents the model shark before the skin is produced. An important component is the backbone made of Makrolon® GP sheet.

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Sushi: Eddie Paul's team presents the model shark before the skin is produced. An important component is the backbone made of Makrolon® GP sheet.

Paul initially placed two cameras in the eyes of the model shark, but he found that they only showed what was happening on either side of the shark and not what the diver could see. So he designed an artificial cleaner fish and attached it to Sushi's back. Concealed in this fish is another camera. Inside the shark, Cousteau lies flat on the bottom with a joystick in each hand, controlling the speed and movement to the left and right. He can make Sushi turn on its own axis just like the real thing. The dives are amazing. "We've bagged some shots of the great whites like you've never seen before," enthuses Cousteau. Even though he has now been working for more than two years on his project, he is still enthralled when he sees the shark submarine in motion: "Wow, that sure looks like a real shark!"

At some point the documentary made during the project will be released. Its working title is 'Mind of a Demon', a title that arouses people's curiosity. And that can only be good for de-demonizing the great white shark.