Looking for a watch with the ultimate water-resistance bragging rights? How about one that will survive a drip to the deepest place on earth? Then you’ll want to snap up the new Rolex Oyster Perpetual Deepsea Challenge.
Announced on 1 November, the watch is rated to a frankly astonishing depth of 11,000 metres (39,090 feet) which means it‘ll survive a trip down to the Mariana Trench.
Developed with the aid of an ultra high-pressure tank, the watch is actually designed to go even further, to a pressure equivalent to a depth of 13,750 metres, once a 25 percent safety margin is accounted for. That's around three miles deeper than Mount Everest is tall.
The watch is made entirely from RLX titanium, and as such becomes the first all-titanium Rolex. The case measures in at a chunky 50 mm in diameter, is 23 mm thick and features a helium escape valve at the nine o’clock position, plus Rolex’s Ringlock system.
The Deepsea Challenge's roots can be traced back to an experimental timepiece that was strapped to the manipulator arm of James Cameron’s submersible back in 2012. Developed in only a few weeks, that particular Rolex was designed to dive to 15,000 metres and withstand 17 tonnes of pressure on its crystal.
Fit for purpose, the new Deepsea Challenge has a bracelet that can be adjusted to be worn over wetsuits up to 7mm thick. It also features Rolex’s Triplock crown with three sealed zones, and a unidirectional 60-minute rotating ceramic bezel. The black dial is illuminated by Chromalight on the white gold hands and hour markers that are thicker than usual, to improve deep sea legibility.
Inside is a calibre 3230 self-winding movement with approximately 70 hours of power reserve. Precision is claimed to be between minus two and plus two seconds per day.
The titanium case of the Rolex Deepsea Challenge is engraved with the words “Mariana Trench” and the dates of 23-01-1960 and 26-03-2012, signifying when oceanographer Jacques Piccard and, latterly, James Cameron took on expeditions to the deepest known part of the Earth. Both took experimental Rolexes with them.
The Deepsea Challenge is available to buy now and is priced at £21,850.
