Look, I get it, identical to with diving, dive watches should not for everybody. However, if World Oceans Day has you contemplating a dive look ahead to the weekends or maybe even a diving certification to name your personal, it’s greatest to contemplate a couple of primary tips to separate the helpful instruments from the murky waters of watch advertising and marketing.
The writer diving off of Clipperton atoll. (Picture: Alex Rose)
The next is a consideration of some issues that can appear apparent to the divers and dive watch nerds amongst us, however is way from typical information to the non-diver. So, if you wish to dip an entire lot greater than your toe into the world of SCUBA and its myriad dive watches, right here’s some hopefully useful recommendation.
200m Is WAY Extra Than Sufficient
By design, all dive gear ought to be over-engineered. That means, when you have an issue, there may be some further security and functionality constructed into your gear. This is the reason dive watches generally have a depth ranking of 200m although in all however probably the most hardcore of diving, that depth ranking is greater than double what is definitely required.
I’m not exaggerating. Those that have gone by way of PADI certification (or related) for diving will know that leisure diving outfits practice divers for a most depth of 30-40 meters. If you wish to go deeper, you must full very specialised and completely non-casual coaching.
For all however a handful of elite divers on the earth, 200 meters of water resistance is greater than sufficient. Something extra is for cool factors on the dive boat and little else.
ISO 6425 Is A Nice Guideline, Not A Rule
Most just lately up to date in 2018, ISO 6425 is a standardization for dive watches maintained by the Worldwide Group for Standardization. Like every commonplace, it suggests a sequence of capabilities and design components that ought to make a watch appropriate for diving and the way the watch could be labeled by the producer.
The Seiko Prospex SPB143, which was up to date shortly after its preliminary launch to incorporate a 5-minute marker subsequent to the date at 3 in accordance with ISO 6425.
Whereas it has turn into a kind of bar by which many maintain any and all dive watches (particularly in internet-based arguments), it’s price contemplating that it’s a commonplace and never a legislation. The fundamentals are sound – and I’ll quote from the ISO – “It applies to divers’ watches designed to face up to diving in water at depths of at the least 100m and outfitted with a secured measuring system to point the diving time, which is seen in darkness.”
In the event you occur to have a dive watch that falls outdoors of the present spec, akin to one and not using a luminous pip on the zero level on the elapsed time scale or perhaps a dive watch that doesn’t have a luminous aspect for every 5-minute marker, that doesn’t imply your watch can’t be used for diving or wouldn’t make a very good backup for a dive laptop. The spec is supposed to be holistic and open to evolution – not excellent.
Contemplate High-Aspect Life, Too
The most recent iteration of the long-standing Omega Seamaster 300M
That is one I needed to be taught as I progressed by way of my dive and dive-watch profession – your dive watch doesn’t need to be an enormous lump of metal that solely works over a wetsuit or once you’re surrounded by a literal ocean’s price of free area. Certain, a hardcore and further toolish dive watch could be a ton of enjoyable, however as outlined above, you simply want a watch that matches a reasonably achievable record of specs.
I’ll hold this straightforward, your dive watch can simply even be your on a regular basis watch. Consider the Rolex Submariner, Omega Seamaster, or a few thousand totally different Seiko dive watch references – all of which could be worn day-after-day whereas additionally dealing with nearly any dive you could have in thoughts. Until it’s extra enjoyable so that you can put on one thing that solely is sensible underwater, take into account one thing that manages each the succesful and the informal.
Grip Issues
In the event you’re shopping for a dive watch with the intention of taking it diving, you’ll want to really use the bezel for greater than timing a pizza supply. The difficulty is, many bezels should not designed to supply a very good grip when moist or once you’re sporting gloves. Certain, there are eventualities through which you set the bezel when your hand and the watch are each dry, maybe on a dive boat – however what a few dive that requires an intensive floor swim, or if you wish to spin the bezel at depth to trace one thing aside from backside time?
The chunky bezel fringe of the Aera D-1 Diver
A few of my earliest and most clumsy moments in diving concerned attempting to grip the skinny band of notching (or worse, a easily scalloped bezel) with 7mm wetsuit gloves whereas bobbing within the waves over a dive web site, watching my co-divers descend as my grip slipped or the bezel spun previous the meant mark.
It’s not precisely a make-or-break function, however I distinctly bear in mind diving Kelvin Grove in Vancouver whereas sporting a Seiko SRP777 and having the ability to simply set the bezel because of the form and knurling (jimping?) on the bezel. It’s the small issues that make a instrument watch, effectively, toolish.
Lume Is For Legibility, Not Longevity
Once you’re not diving, the best lume glows brightly and for a very long time. Diving modifications this situation. In the event you want your lume underwater, it implies that you’re both diving in murky/darkish water otherwise you’re on an evening dive. Both means, you must have a flashlight of some kind.
The lume of the Seiko Prospex SPB143
Thus, longevity is much less of a difficulty underwater as you possibly can shortly cost your lume with a flashlight and most dives are generally between 30-60 minutes in size. What’s essential is legibility. How shortly are you able to look at your watch and divine the minute hand and its place relative to the pip on the bezel?
The lume dial of the brand new Doxa Sub 300 Carbon Whitepearl
Having performed most of my very own diving round Vancouver, darkish and murky water was largely the norm and, provided that my dive laptop didn’t have an lively backlight, I discovered that I generally used my dive watch to have a fast have a look at my elapsed time. My dive laptop may very well be charged with a lightweight, but it surely lasted solely a few minutes whereas most any first rate dive watch can be glowing from the floor swim alone.
The Strap Issues, A Lot
Most dive watches are offered with an on a regular basis possibility for the strap, be it a bracelet or another possibility. Some include a second possibility for diving, whereas others package deal a dive extension into the clasp of the bracelet. The usefulness of those options will differ significantly relying on the place you dive and what you put on as an publicity layer (assume: the thickness of a wetsuit or, thicker nonetheless, a drysuit).
The extending and spring-adjusting clasp of the Tudor Pelagos.
In the event you’re diving in heat water, you might be able to flip open that extension and slide your dive watch over the cuff of a skinny wetsuit. Or, the water could also be heat sufficient that you simply gained’t really feel the necessity for gloves, so the watch can keep at its regular spot in your wrist.
However, for those who diving in cooler water or just choose the security and heat of gloves, you’ll want an answer that gives extra extension, be it a rubber strap of appropriate size, a bracelet with a incredible extension system like that discovered on the Tudor Pelagos, and even a further size of strap used as an extension to wrap across the forearm of your drysuit.
The Seiko SRPC44 on its inventory rubber strap.
I’ve used the entire above options and probably the most elegant is unquestionably that of the Tudor, however a protracted rubber strap is tough to beat and might simply be swapped in on a dive day. That is one thing price excited about for those who’re planning to get licensed and dive in less-than-tropical environments.
Colour Doesn’t Dive
Whereas it might appear apparent that there shall be much less accessible mild as you dive deeper underwater, do you know that the modifications in mild additionally have an effect on the colours that shall be seen to your eyes and not using a flashlight?
Shiny and colourful, however for those who go deep sufficient most of that colour will fade.
It’s true! Whereas dive watches are among the many most multi-colored designs in the marketplace, colour is absorbed at depth primarily based on the wavelength of a given colour vary. The longer the wavelength, the much less it penetrates to deeper depths. As such, pink fades round 15ft, orange round 25ft, yellow makes it to as a lot as 45ft, and inexperienced shall be grey by 75ft. Moreover, these ballpark figures embrace horizontal journey for mild underwater, so colour can begin to disappear in a short time.
As a lot as I really like a Doxa Skilled, that vibrant orange dial is perhaps best-suited for the deck of a dive boat or a tiki bar after an incredible day of diving.
Preserve It Easy, Silly
This goes for all dive gear, however particularly for watches and much more so for those who’re nonetheless growing your SCUBA acumen – a sophisticated dive watch solely will get in the way in which.
An early Seamaster 600, a design that will later turn into the enduring Ploprof.
See that burly dive watch with the helium escape valve, the locking bezel mechanism, and the tiny hand indicating your depth on the dial? You don’t want it. It could be cool – it virtually definitely is – and it might even be purposeful, however you don’t want it. A dive watch ought to be a easy, easy-to-use factor. Added complexity solely occludes the bottom performance (that’s, to trace how lengthy you’ve been diving) below layers of promoting materials and ergonomic pitfalls.
Take a look at the classics, they cowl all of the bases with out lacking the purpose of why you’d trouble to make use of them whereas diving within the first place.
Care For Your Dive Watch So It Can Care For You
This shall be drilled into you if and once you get licensed, however all dive gear requires some minimal service after a dive, and that features your dive watch. The principle aspect, particularly for those who’re diving in salt water, is to rinse off your gear with recent water.
A Divex dive watch discovered by Jason Heaton on a shipwreck within the Indian Ocean.
Did you’re taking your watch diving? Rinse it off otherwise you threat permitting grit and salt deposits to construct up below the bezel and inhibit correct use.
Apart from rinsing, get your watch serviced on the applicable intervals and ensure to have the watchmaker run a strain check to confirm that your watch stays as much as spec. Skipping these easy steps can be as foolish as forgetting to screw down the crown earlier than a dive. Both means, benefit from the flood.
