George M. Irvine III, AKA, 'Trey' founder and President of Gavin Scooters, Inc, now Gavin Water Sports, Inc. President of Pipewelders Marine/HighSeas Technology and their affiliates. www.pipewelders.com

 George Irvine - Putting it All Together and Making it Happen  — Every Gavin Scooter is manufactured by George Irvine, former project director of the Woodville Karst Plain Project (WKPP).  In 1990, when there was nothing else available, Bill Gavin and George Irvine developed these scooters,  for deep, long range exploration in the caves of the Woodville Karst Plain. 

There was nothing available in the market place for this type of diving. Recognizing the importance of reliable propulsion to achieve these dives, George himself took on the further development and perfection of this tool. George bore all of the expense of developing and perfecting this tool to further enable the project's exploration efforts. Initially, the Gavin scooters were only made available to WKPP members, but later other groups and DIR members showed an interest and extras were produced to help fund the project. 

Below, included in the slide show, are some recent pictures by GUE of The Mexico Cave Exploration Project (photos by: David Rhea):

George took over the Project (WKPP) from 1992 until 2002 and installed mandatory DIR principles developed by him and Jarrod Jablonski (President of Global Underwater Explorers -- GUE and CEO of Halcyon Manufacturing and Extreme Exposure), his dive partner. Bill Gavin was George's previous dive partner until he retired.

History:

The One And Only Gavin:
Bill Gavin, who was the Director of the WKPP before George Irvine, is an engineer who designs underwater vehicles, rebreathers, and other gear for the US Navy including the secret vehicles. His knowledge and information base is extensive. Gavin was one of the all time best ever in cave diving. When he retired from it, he had 18 years of experience and the end of the line everywhere.

Changes Through the Years:

The WKPP needed long range deep DPV's so Bill and George developed them, hence, the "Gavin" design.  Since the original Gavin scooters the only changes made have been:

1. To standardize all the scooters so that all the components will fit in any other Gavin Scooter.
2. To change to a more rugged material. For instance, the tail section of the current HDPE scooters are all one piece. The bodies are still PVC because that has proven to be the most rigid and reliable for the application. The nose cones and tails are HDPE which is pretty much impossible to break and will tolerate a wide range of heat and cold.

All of the significant internal components remain the same as always. All scooters come standard with:

• WKPP clutches
• Gold super connectors
• Locking gold banana plugs for the read-switch connection
• Adjustable reed switches
• Clear motor compartment lids
• Pressure testing port

There are Currently Two New Products Offered by Gavin Scooters: 

• All Aluminum Back End: jointly designed by Reinhard Buchaly and George Irvine for use in the European Karst Plain Project.
• Mini G:  a miniature version of the HDPE Gavin, which has all the same motor and internal components of the larger version but uses the 'nickel medal Hydride' batteries, is smaller in diameter, and weighs 40 pounds. Both the Mini G and the Short body standard HDPE can be purchased with travel cases

MOST IMPORTANT!!!:

Who Uses Gavin Scooters — The WKPP , which holds all the distance records in deep and shallow caves in the world and the US (Chips Hole open circuit, world record traverse between two sinks, longest deep open circuit dive, longest ever cave dive) and has been able to push all cave systems it explores well beyond where others gave up, usually in one dive, uses the Gavin and the Gavin only.
In 2006, the WKPP broke its own record extending the main tunnel out of Wakulla 20,000 feet. For information on these dives go to the WKPP/exporation section of the GUE website.

Fleets of Gavins — This is a picture of Casey McKinlay's personal fleet of Gavins. McKinlay is WKPP Project Director. The age of his fleet ranges from 14 years to 4 months. The newest of the scooters seen here is 8 years old. The longer scooters are the "Magnum Gavin," mostly used with the rebreather/doubles combination. (Click the image to the left or the link above for more WKPP images of Gavin Scooters in use).

Images from the WKPP's use of Gavin Scooters at Wakulla Springs, Florida, where they rode them 19,000 feet back in a cave that is 300 feet deep, breaking their own world records repeatedly. Two images are from where no other scooter dare to go, and only two humans in the world have ever been.