The best new dive watches for men (that aren’t the Rolex Yacht-Master 42)
Omega, Tudor and Blancpain update their depth-defying dive watches
Big couple of years for history’s most iconic dive watches. Not only did the two OGs in the underwater watch category turn 70 last year – Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms narrowly pipping Rolex’s Submariner to market back in 1953 – but the other most significant name in submersible timepieces, Omega’s Seamaster, celebrated its, er, 75th anniversary. How does that work? Well, while Omega’s original Seamaster landed in 1948, employing a rubber gasket to keep out water, it was, for all intents and purposes, a waterproof dress watch rather than a watch designed explicitly for exploring the depths of the oceans. Omega’s first bonafide deep-water watch, the Seamaster 300, arrived in 1957. Blancpain, therefore, assumes bragging rights for coming up with the first modern (that is to say, post-SCUBA) dive watch.
Expect a slew of tributes to the Seamaster 300 to be released in three years’ time. Before then, these are the best recent dive watches that aren’t the Rolex Yacht-Master 42 (i.e. dive watches you might actually be able to get your hands on)…
Tudor Black Bay 58 18K
Within a register of revamped Black Bays, Tudor chose Watches and Wonders 2024 to unveil the first solid-gold version of its halo dive watch. The Black Bay 58 has been available with an 18k gold case since 2021; it’s now offered with a matching 18k three-link, satin-brushed bracelet. The caseback, crown and bezel are also constructed from the same precious metal. Rolex used the same show to debut its first all-gold Deepsea. Tudor, once again, proving that anything it’s older brother can do…
Zenith DEFY Extreme Diver
Better known for its pilot’s watches – the brand trademarked the name ‘Pilot’ for its dials all the way back in 1904 – Zenith can trace its diving watch story to 1969, the year of the famous El Primero movement and the company’s first Defy Diver. This year’s super-strong, ultra-light (you have titanium to thank for that) DEFY Extreme Diver comes equipped with every feature you’d want in an underwater watch. To wit, a rotating bezel with grooved edges (for better grip when operating with gloves), an oversized crown (ditto), oversized hands (to make reading the time as easy as possible), a helium escape valve (so it won’t implode), and a chapter ring in bright orange (to simplify keeping track of elapsed time). Plus, it’s water-resistant (to 600m). Huge plus, where dive watches are concerned.
Omega SeamasterPlanet Ocean 600M
Recent watch design has been dominated by shades of blue and green, but another, more sober colourway appears to be having something of a moment. After IWC’s Big Pilot Top Gun Edition Mojave Desert, and Bremont’s MB Savanna, Omega has been experimenting with its own version of sandy beige. As with fashion, the colour of stealth wealth is being embraced by the watch world. See, too, Swatch’s Missions to Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn. The new Seamaster Planet Ocean sports a sand-blasted beige dial, a bronze-coloured bezel, and matching chronograph pushers. How legible it remains when taken under water, we sadly wouldn’t be able to tell you.
Blancpain Bathyscaphe Quantième Complet Phases de Lune
Three years after Blancpain debuted its now-legendary original dive watch in 1953, the Fifty Fathoms, the Swiss watchmaker unveiled the Bathyscaphe. Designed as an alternative, ‘everyday’ option, the Bathyscaphe was, likewise, a watch you could take under water. Yet it arrived in a smaller case and featured more elegant styling. The model has occupied a similar space within Blancpain’s portfolio ever since. This year, the brand turns its attentions to the Bathyscaphe Quantième Complet Phases de Lune, fitting it, for the first time, with a case and bracelet constructed from black ceramic. Choose between a black or green sunray-brushed dial.
Longines HYDROCONQUEST GMT
The first Hydroconquests landed in 2007, before they were expanded to 41mm in 2023. This year, Longines bucks the industry trend for reducing case sizes, by offering a Hydroconquest GMT in a beefed up 43mm case. The new-gen stainless steel number features polished and satin-brushed facets, and is powered by an in-house movement equipped with a silicon balance spring. There’s also a date window and 24-hour day-night indicator. A lot of watch for less than £3,000, in other words.
Seiko Prospex ‘Marine Green’ GMT
The first modern dive watch to come out of Japan rolled off Seiko’s production lines in 1965. The watch was made at the behest of a diver from Hiroshima, who’d written to the company to express his frustration at not being able to find a watch that could function at depths greater than 300 metres. Ten years later, Seiko manufactured the first watch capable of functioning at depths of 600 metres, followed, in 1982, by the first diver’s watch to incorporate an alarm. The recent Prospex ‘Marine Green’ GMT may not feature an inbuilt warning system, but it will tell you the time in a second time zone while running autonomously for 72 hours.
Glashütte Original SeaQ
Things the Germans do well: five-door family saloons, hilltop castles, and sub-zero Christmas markets. To that list add elegant dive watches so natty they could function as your evening dress watch. This latest underwater piece from Glashütte Original sports a smouldering red-gold case against a synthetic grey strap. It shouldn’t work as well as it does. Gold-edged white numerals pop against a galvanic, sunray-finished black dial. It’s the first dive watch from the German watchmaker to display its inner, hand-finished workings through an exhibition caseback. Class.
Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa
A long-time patron of underwater conservation efforts, Blancpain has supported the Gombessa Expeditions in French Polynesia for the previous 10 years. In order to study the behaviour of great hammerhead sharks, divers must stay submerged for up to three hours – a period of time it was tricky to track on an analogue dive watch, until now. Step in Blancpain CEO, and keen scuba diver, Marc A. Hayek, who personally helped design the three-hour scale on the bezel of the Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa – the first instance of such a scale being seen on a dive watch.
Tudor Black Bay Burgundy
Tudor’s dive watch credentials run deep. The Rolex sister-brand came out with its own waterproof ‘Oyster’ watch in 1952 and a bonafide, deep-water dive watch, the Oyster Prince Submariner, in the same year that Rolex dropped its own Submariner. Tudor upgrades that watch’s successor, the Black Bay, with a METAS-certified movement, which it houses in a slimmer, more ergonomic case. The burgundy bezel is a winner. So, too, is the new five-link stainless steel Jubilee-style bracelet.
Omega Planet Ocean 600M
The special-edition Omega Ploprof is good to a depth of 1,200 metres, almost double the distance of the deepest ever dive (legendary Greek-Frenchman Théo Mavrostomos descended to 701 metres in 1992, setting a record that remains unbeaten). But the Ploprof’s case comes in at a whopping 55 x 45 mm. Much more sensible, then, to opt for the real-world-friendly Planet Ocean 600M. Sure, it’ll only do half the distance, but a 39.5mm case and PVD-coated blue gradient dial will draw attention for all the right reasons.
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