Les Gorski, creator of the G2000SS diving helmet, has died

Sad news has reached us from the USA. Les Gorski, the creator of the popular diving helmet and a true legend of professional diving, died on June 2.

Les Gorski, or actually Leszek Górski, was born in Łódź in 1953. Before he joined the army and got involved in diving for good, he first graduated from the Faculty of Electronics. After being called up to the army, he went to the coast, where his diving history began.

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My love for the water was already well established by then. Since I was young, I had spent every holiday with my parents at the Baltic Sea anyway – said Les Gorski in an interview with the Divers Institute

Underwater work

After completing compulsory military service, he moved to Koszalin. There, he quickly became involved in the local diving community. In the early 1980s, he set up an underwater work company. At that time, the equipment for conducting such activities consisted of military equipment, old commercial diving equipment combined with scuba diving equipment and various self-made products.

The famous saying, “you have to be of good quality”, reflects the Polish reality of that time on many levels. We could only dream about professional and modern solutions available in professional diving in the West. The reason was extremely prosaic – the prices of such equipment were simply an insurmountable chasm.

It was then, in the first half of the 1980s, that the idea of creating his own diving helmet first entered Les’ mind. In 1984, Les Gorski emigrated to the United States and entered the community of divers there in the Gulf of Mexico region. He began to deal with professional equipment for underwater work, but recognised its shortcomings and never abandoned his plan to create a diving helmet.

I always thought about developing and producing a better solution because I wanted something different. Comfortable to wear, easy to breathe, modern, safe, easy to maintain and cost effective. The ideal diving helmet would be made of stainless steel and have valves, o-rings etc. that are easy to access and easy to mount and dismount – recalls Les Gorski

G2000SS

Between 1984 and 2003, the Les Gorski hel met underwent many design modifications. From a handmade and unique specimen, to a fully finished helmet. And it happened. In 2004, the G2000SS diving helmet underwent many tests and then went into production. The dream he sowed in communist Poland in the early .80s was realised over 20 years later in the USA.

In March 2011, Gorski’s company was bought out by Aqua Lung and the helmet became a key product in the new owner’s range. Without doubt, the interest and determination of the American company shows just how good a product the G2000SS has proven to be. In parallel, Les Gorski joined the Aqua Lung team where he continued to develop his own diving helmet.