DESCRIPTION
Siebe Gorman 3bolt Lightweight Utility Helmet
Thougt this has only one oval window, the manufacturers state-it is intended to provide an economical but efficient helmet and corselet for devers whose principalwork is in the shallow waters of harbours and docks, altough it can, if required, be used in deep water, Similar to the Mine recovery helmet, the one window hinges at the base.
According to Siebe Gorman this gives vision compatible with the normal front and side window helmets.
The corselet is fixed to the helmet with three hinged swing bolts. It is a basic hat, having nospitcock, tie-offs or lanvard hooks, but has a normal spindle and wheel outlet valve with an internal head buton.Being a lightweight helmet it needsonly two 28 lbs leads, together with light weight brass boots specially made for shllow-water work.
If the lightweight Harbour Dress is worn which has Wellington boots fitted, an extra 232 lbs in the form of 10 lead strip weights slot into pockets around the base of the legs`instead of the brass boots.
As the head is the same size as the ordinary standard helmet but has a light weight corselet, the air in the helmet will tend to lift it off the shoulders.The refore as well as weight hangers an extra lug has been fitted to the frnot and rear of the corselet so that a jock strap can be used to overcome this problem.These lugs are not standard and would presumably have been fitted later.Sometimes the weights were joined together with short ropes and wqorn over the shoulders instead of usine the weight hangers, as can be seen from the markings on this corselet.The attached lanvard came with the helmet.The blanking off caps, on the Air and cvomms connections are an indication that it waqs well lookedafter.It dates from 1910/20s. has few dents and a beatiful patina.
