Strapping Watches to Submersibles

Japan's KAIKO 7000II, a remotely operated research vehicle, is capable of 7000 meter dives.

As a new student of commercial diving, I'm fascinated with pretty much anything manmade which is purposefully lowered into the sea. Whether it be a diver, a remote operated vehicle (ROV), or a manned submersible, I just think it's cool.  I'm also a huge fan of watches and diving watches in particular.    The technical advancement in diving watches is unbelievable and in many cases depth ratings are so deep they're more a marvel of technological advancement than a necessary diving instrument.  Why would I ever need a watch that's capable of being submerged to 1000 meters or more?  I wouldn't and neither would you.  Watches like this are never used anywhere near their maximum pressure endurance... or are they?

The Bathyscaphe Trieste visited Challenger Deep at 35,797ft in 1960 with a Rolex along for the ride.

There is some history of diving watches being "tested" (ahem, marketed) on the outside of various submersibles.  This goes back as far as 1960 when the US Navy owned Bathyscaphe Trieste carried French scientist Jacques Piccard and USN Lieutenant Don Walsh all the way down to Challenger Deep which at 35,797ft is the deepest known point in our oceans.  They did not travel alone.  They had strapped to the outside of their sub a prototype Rolex diving watch purpose built for the expedition.  Though garish and highly exaggerated in its depth cheating design, the watch kept time and survived the journey.  It's important to note that although Rolex has invented, engineered, and pioneered all kinds of truly reliable deep diving watches the one outside the Trieste was only a prototype and was never produced.

Any dive watch nerd loves a domed crystal but this... 

A somewhat unattractive and clearly purpose built bottom timer, the Deepsea Special Prototype.

It makes sense that Rolex, whose Deepsea Special Prototype accompanied Trieste to Challenger Deep, wouldn't miss the chance (marketing) to do it again.  James Cameron, with all of the money there ever was, supervised, piloted, and directed the engineering and design of another one man submersible, the DEEPSEA CHALLENGER, which on March 26th, 2012 also touched bottom at Challenger Deep.

It's incredible what James Cameron can accomplish by throwing Swiss bank accounts around.  

 As you might imagine, yet another special Rolex deep diving prototype was produced.  This one, the Deepsea Challenge, looks a lot more like a standard Rolex Deepsea than the 1960 model.  Once again this watch was strapped to the outside of the sub while James Cameron wore a regular commercially available Deepsea inside the sub where the pressure was a steady 1 ATM/14.7 psi where a shopping mall purchased Timex would have survived admirably... but I digress.

The Deepsea Challenge looks very much like it's regular Deepsea Sea-Dweller cousin and can apparently handle some very serious pressure.  

Cameron atop his submersible with the special Deepsea Challenge watch strapped to the robot arm.  

Strapping crazy, over engineered watches to the outside of deep submergence vehicles is all well and good.  Though more marketing than science a diving watch fan can't help but get excited to see how the over engineering of simple dive watch concepts such as the screw down crown and case back can be exaggerated to the point where the ocean literally bottoms out.  Moreover, these Rolex watches aren't even available!  Of course Rolex does have the 4200 meter rated Deepsea Sea-Dweller which would of course be fully functional long after my deep water expiration but once again, I digress.  

The Seiko Prospex SBDX011 1000m diver goes a hell of a lot deeper.  

Another instance of a submersible ride along watch is a regular, commercially available, extremely rugged Seiko.  That's right, Seiko of Japan has been making diving watches for professional divers ever since 1965 and have much less often felt the need to co-fund, sponsor, or build marketing hype prototypes for any deep water adventures.

Japan's own KAIKO 7000II.  

 Seiko Prospex (Professional Specification) diving watches are finally realizing the world wide popularity they deserve.  In fact, in September, 2014 the Japanese government owned ROV called KAIKO 7000II did a 4299 meter dive with four Seiko Marinemaster (so called Tuna) models onboard.  Incredibly, the quartz version kept time all the way down to 3284 meters or 2.04 miles.  Even more incredible, the automatic lasted to 4299 meters or 2.64 miles before the seconds hand finally stopped in its tracks.  It's important to note that these watches were regular, right off the production line models and were in no way modified for this test.  It's also significant that Seiko would allow the failure of any of their watches to be recorded in a marketing oriented setting.  It appears they know they make rugged, quality time pieces and perhaps have a little less to prove than their big Swiss cousins... Pretty cool.  

Ironically, these guys almost never wear watches.

But, as a diver, this is all a little bit silly.  Even the gnarliest Kirby Morgan Super Light sportin' deep water saturation diving son of a bitch probably rarely breaks the 1000ft/330m mark.   We just have to accept it.  They build these things because they can and because sometimes no one has yet.  All we can do is sit back and drool respectfully as diving and diving watch technology again and again defies our expectations.