Enzo Maiorca, the man who dared to challenge science, two days before diving in apnea with the aim of breaking the 50-meter depth wall, in response to Professor Gabarrou said: “Impossible is just an opinion”.
Gabarrou, a physiologist from the Cousteau team, argued in fact that at that depth the human body would not have held up and would have imploded. In a gas at a constant temperature, pressure and volume are inversely proportional, when you go underwater, every 10 meters the pressure increases by an atmosphere and the lung volume is reduced; at 50 meters we have 6 atmospheres of pressure and the lung volume is 1/6 of the initial one on the surface, this according to science was the physical limit that would have led man to death.
Maiorca plunged into apnea and returned to the surface with the tag recovered at 50m, setting a historic milestone. Maiorca did not accept that medicine caged him and limited him in his potential. Whether in freediving, with diving equipment or aboard ever more sophisticated submersibles, man’s challenge to depth is timeless and in parallel has also been taken up by the world of watchmaking.
Just think of Auguste Piccard’s bathyscaphe Trieste which in 1953 reached a depth of 3150 meters, accompanied by the Rolex Deep Sea Special N ° 1; or the first man to ever reach the Mariana Trench alone, the deepest point in the world. To accomplish this feat on March 26, 2012 it was James Cameron, who aboard the Deepsea Challenger bathyscaphe reached a depth of 10,898 meters. Accompanying him it wad the Rolex Deepsea Challenge watch, made specifically for the occasion, capable of withstanding those pressures.
But as anticipated, that of the man with depth is an endless challenge and in April / May 2019, The Five Deeps Expedition team made history.
After mapping the ocean floor using the sonar system to find the deepest point of the eastern depression of the Challenger abyss in the Mariana Trench, Victor Vescovo piloted the Limiting Factor alone, the operational submarine capable of reaching the highest depths in the world. , leading it to the deepest place on Earth.
Here too, accompanying the man was a watch, Omega’s Ultra Deep, designed to last a long time and face not only an arduous challenge to a new world record, but numerous dives.
Omega’s goal was to create a watch for a very specific use, using technologies that could be reproduced on an industrial scale in the future; this testifies to two worlds that often interpenetrate and complement each other, that of human challenges and that of technology at their service.
But let’s abandon the history and history of these pioneers for a moment and try to go more into the practical, to understand if with our favorite timepiece we can take a shower, or go diving in the Red Sea; there is no need to hide it from us, water resistance always plays an important role when evaluating the purchase of a new watch.
To do this, however, we must introduce an important concept, that of pressure, but above all of its units of measurement, which we now find explicit in all the technical specifications of modern timepieces.
We have already anticipated that, diving deeply, every 10 meters the pressure exerted on our body by the water column above us will increase by an atmosphere, but what is an atmosphere? It is the value of the terrestrial atmospheric pressure at sea level equal to 1.01325 bar; while the bar is a unit of measurement of pressure which corresponds to 0.9869 ATM.
What is meant by Water Resistant and how to understand if a watch is a Diver?
The water resistance indicated on the back of the watch, generally expressed in meters, atmospheres (ATM) or in bars, is used to indicate the degree of resistance of a watch when it is exposed to water, humidity and even dust. There are various techniques for waterproofing a watch, depending on which one is used, the degrees of atmospheres and therefore the meters of possible immersion depth are defined. In making a distinction, it is also necessary to consider whether a timepiece is sealed or equipped with a sealed crown, which guarantees safe isolation, as well as whether it has a screwed back or even a one-piece case.
In principle, it is possible to make the values of METERS / BAR / ATM equivalent, in the sense that, as indicated in the table below, the values of water resistance “often correspond”.
It is good to remember, however, that the pressure for which your watch is guaranteed is not to be interpreted literally, but is purely indicative; it is in fact the result obtained through static tests in the laboratory.
But why are 30 or 50 meters of depth indicated, if in reality the watch is not suitable for diving?
Care must be taken not to confuse a diving watch with a water resistant one. Timepieces are defined as Underwater only when they can withstand a pressure of at least 10 bar, equivalent to the pressure reached at a depth of approximately 100 meters.
On the other hand, those watches resistant to a lower pressure, for example 3 or 5 bar, are classified as Water Resistant. The latter type of watches is not waterproof, so it cannot be immersed in water, despite being characterized by a high resistance to the occasional entry of liquid inside the case:
- A 3 bar water resistance – or 3 ATM or 30m – has a very low resistance, able to withstand rain, sweat and accidental splashes of water when washing hands or face. But be cautious, nothing more than this.
- A 5 bar water resistance or ATM / 50m Water Resistant can be subjected to limited water pressure, so you can take a shower or bath and swim.
- Only watches guaranteed for 10 bar or ATM / 100m can be defined as truly waterproof. If you have one you can safely practice, in addition to swimming, other water sports such as snorkeling or short free diving, up to about 10 meters.
- But if your desire is to dive deeper water, I recommend that you buy a more reliable model, which can withstand at least 20 or 30 bar or ATM / 200m – 300m. These are professional diving watches, characterized by a high seal, which can be used in scuba diving.
To resist water, therefore, it takes more than a simple gasket, the case must be able to withstand the pressure and corrosive effects of salt water.
A little bit of history
In the 1920s the screw-down crown was introduced, patented by Rolex which, in 1927 with its Oyster case, was the protagonist during the swimming crossing of the English Channel, Mercedes Gleitze in fact, wore a Rolex Oyster Perpetual on the wrist.
Omega was no exception and in those years it introduced the Omega Marine; these were the forerunners of the Submariner and Seamaster models, introduced in the 1950s.
The structure of the case is therefore a very important element, some professional diving watches are equipped with monobloc cases, such as the Seiko Marinemaster 300 or the Omega Seamaster PloProf 600M, others with a helium escape valve, suitable for professional divers. that work at great depths.
The helium inside the case, as the depth increases, increases enormously in pressure and must be released before the watch returns to a normal pressurization level, to prevent the difference in pressure between the interior and the the outside of the case may cause the crystal to explode or damage the movement.
Examples of the use of this technical device are the Rolex Sea-Dweller and the Omega Seamaster 300M, both equipped with Helium Escapement Valve; Rolex has an automatic helium valve, visible on the right in the image below, while on the left you can see the solution adopted by Omega, an additional crown at 10 o’clock, which releases the helium when operated manually. Both solutions ensure that the clock continues to be resistant to water ingress even during their operation.
Other brands offer original technical solutions to fix the winding crown, such as Panerai which, for watches produced for the Navy, used a lever mechanism to firmly push the crown onto the case; also worth mentioning are brands such as U-Boat and Visconti, which use unconventional methods to fix the crown and ensure its waterproofing.
Nowadays diving watches are also a matter of style, many major brands offer a collection of waterproof timepieces in their catalog, some of which are equipped with pushers, which must be unscrewed on the surface before use, such as the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph or Rolex Daytona, this to guarantee waterproof performance.
I hope this short guide will help you choose the watch that best suits your needs. Whether or not you are looking for a watch to accompany you on the occasional dive, or to wear more than anything else to go swimming, take the water resistance level seriously because, as we have seen, incorrect use of your timepiece can lead to to sometimes irreparable damage.
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