The love story between Rolex and water resistance is long and has never faded, tracing its origins back to 1926 when the Oyster Case was patented, so called because likely as an oyster it can live an undefined amount of time in the sea without suffering any damage. The year after Mercedes Gleitze became the first British woman to successfully swim across the English Channel and a journalist for “The Times” newspaper was writing that she “carried a small gold watch, which was found […] to have kept good time throughout”. What came later is history.
With the birth of the Submariner in 1953, the bond between Rolex and waterproofness made a significant step forward. The Submariner featured a tri-piece oyster case with a rotating bezel on top and was guaranteed down to 100 meters of depth thanks to a screw-down crown with the Twinlock system, benefitting from two sealed zones, that evolved in 1970 to the Triplelock system adding a third sealed zone. In the meanwhile, the waterproofness grew from 200 meters already in 1954 to 300 meters in 1989.
Since the beginning, Rolex was asking professional divers to wear its timepieces during their missions in order to gather impressions and suggestions to improve their product. Particularly important for today’s story is the partnership with the expedition led by the Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard and the U.S. Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh that took place on 23 January 1960. On board the bathyscaphe Trieste, Piccard and Walsh achieved a feat by descending to the deepest part of the world’s oceans, the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Accompanying them to the bottom of the ocean there was a Rolex watch, the Deep-Sea Special that reached 10.916 meters below sea level and lead to the development of an evolution of the Submariner, named Sea-Dweller, that was officially born in 1967 featuring the patented helium escape valve and allowing the watch to dive down to originally 610 meters and then to 1.220 meters. As a natural progression of the previous experience, in 1969 the brand partnered with the underwater habitat project “Tektite” through which four aquanauts spent 58 days below the water surface and were equipped with Rolex watches. Moreover, in 1967, Rolex began a partnership with HYCO (International Hydrodynamics Company), a Canadian firm specializing in the development of submarines, that allowed them to attach Sea-Dweller watches the outside of HYCO submersibles on various missions. After a dive of around four hours at a depth of 411 meters (1,350 feet), HYCO sent Rolex the following conclusions regarding the Sea-Dweller’s performance: “During all the phases of testing the watch performed beautifully”. In 1971, Rolex formalized what is probably its most famous partnership: Comex (Compagnie Maritime d’Expertises). This French marine-engineering firm based in Marseilles agreed to equip its divers with Rolex watches and report back regularly on the watches’ performances so that the brand could further enhance their reliability and functionality.
Coming to 2008, Rolex introduced the Deepsea which featured the panted Ringlock system that enables it to withstand pressure at a depth of 3,900 meters. The system comprises a slightly domed sapphire crystal, a nitrogen-alloyed steel compression ring and a case back made from titanium alloy. It was the 26th of march 2012 when the Rolex Deepsea Challenge, a prototype inspired by the Deepsea, was hitting the bottom of the Mariana Trench attached to a manipulator arm of the submersible piloted by explorer and filmmaker James Cameron. The watch included all of the brand’s technical innovations in terms of waterproofness, and, in the test phases, successfully withstood the pressure exerted at 15,000 meters, which means that the Ringlock system’s central ring had been subjected to a pressure equivalent to a weight of 20 tons. It was exactly ten years after this astonishing accomplishment that Rolex decided to celebrate it by introducing on the market the new Deepsea Challenge, capable of reaching 11.000 meters below the water surface and requiring three years of development. In accordance with the standard Rolex quality process, all the divers’ watches are tested at their guaranteed waterproofness depth plus an additional 25%, so the new Deepsea Challenge is able to withstand more than 13.750 meters of pressure.
This astonishing result is accomplished through the helium escape valve, the Ringlock system and a new material based on grade 5 titanium alloy named RLX titanium. The mysterious Ringlock is a simple yet ingenious solution that overcomes the problem of thickness to resist pressure. Basically, it consists of a stainless-steel inner ring within the case upon which the crystal is mounted on one side, and a titanium case back fits on the other. The system is designed to reduce the stress on the case by diverting the pressure on the sapphire crystal to this resistant inner ring. Since the large area of sapphire crystal implies to have a great force exerted on it as a watch goes deeper underwater, the Ringlock takes the brunt of the pressure instead and the case itself can be thinner. As Rolex writes in the patent application, “the problem which occurs when making a sealed wristwatch case which is resistant down to very great depths, typically of between 3,000 and 5,000 meters, is, in particular, its thickness”.
On the other hand, the helium escape valve, patented in 1967 with the Sea-Dweller, allows helium molecules to safely escape avoiding to blow out through the watch’s weakest point, like shattering the crystal. Regarding the RLX titanium, we can say that it is an allow of titanium with the addition of aluminum and vanadium that allows the watch to be 40% lighter than if it would have been made by steel and let me say that I won’t be surprised if this is just the first try with titanium and other models will follow in future.
With its 50mm diameter and 23mm thickness it is clear that aesthetics was not Rolex top priority during the watch development because the timepiece was born to serve a precise purpose. Moreover, it has to be noted for vintage aficionados that the polished chamfers on the case have returned, the glass covering the dial has a beautiful reminiscence of the vintage Plexiglas that equipped the first Sea-Dweller and the dial is matte as in the vintage references.
The question that may arise at this point is: does the Rolex Deepsea Challenge make sense? Well, if you have a wrist bigger than 20cm and €26.100 burning in your pockets then I think this watch would fit you quite well considering the lug-to-lug and the light-weight titanium. Otherwise, this watch can be considered a collectable piece that could be bought if one has a true appreciation for the technical skills that are required to produce at industrial scale a watch with such performances. For technical enthusiasts, this watch is simply amazing because it almost doubles the water resistance of the recently released Omega Ultra-Deep, becoming the first commercial production watch that can actually reach the bottom of the ocean (previously restricted to prototypes only). What we have seen, this watch is the peak of Rolex’s technical knowledge, bringing together more than 60 years of research, passion and pursuit beyond the challenges that did rise in the way. You may like it or not, but you can’t deny the humankind history that is packed within these 251 grams.
