ULLSTEIN BILD/ULLSTEIN BILD VIA GETTY IMAGE
S (BATHYSCAPE); COURTESY OF ROLEX
(SUBMARINER); KEYSTONE/GETTY IMAGES (PICCARD); ©ROLEX/JEAN-DANIEL MEYER (DEEPSEA)five months of testing, “in spite
of the high degree of salt in
Mediterranean waters, with
tropical temperatures and
humidity, no trace of corrosion
could be detected”, he wrote.
Nor could any trace of humidity
be found inside, despite the fact
that “several dives were
performed with the winding
crown pulled out, in the position
for hand-setting”. In a final test,
Rebikoff attached the watch to a
wire and dropped it overboard
“to a depth of 120 metres, double
the maximum to which we are
able to dive with independent
compressed air equipment.”
After an hour, he hauled it
up and found that no water
had infiltrated the case. He
could only report that the watch
had “given entire satisfaction
in diving conditions which
were extremely tough” and
“proved an indispensable
accessory for all diving with
independent equipment”.
By contrast, “all previous
trials with watches of the
best-known makes had shown
the entry of water from the first
dive, easily recognisable by the
accumulation of condensation
on the inside of the glass.” But
one thing in particular
impressed Rebikoff. “The
exterior disc of the watch,
designed to indicate the minutes
elapsed, showed itself to be
absolutely indispensable for
controlling the individual diving
time of each diver,” he wrote.
“Apart from this, the revolving
disc proved very valuable for anumber of uses outside diving:
calculating average journey
times by car, timing telephone
conversations, timing
photographic developments,
timing cooking, etc.”
What gave the Rolex
Submariner its character then,
as now, was the calibrated
rotating bezel, for which a patent
had been applied during
February 1953. Water-resistant
watches had been around for a
generation, but keeping an
accurate account of time
underwater, in order to avoid
exceeding the time limits set
for various depths and to
time decompression stops,
was difficult.
The simple act of
breathing under the
sort of pressures that
occur at depth
dissolves nitrogen
into the blood.
Should a diver
return to the surface
too rapidly, the
nitrogen bubbles crowd
the bloodstream,causing muscle cramp and
potentially blocking arteries. In
the past, various methods of
timekeeping were used,
including discharging a firearm
on the surface every 15 minutes
to help divers keep track of time.
Now, with an easily legible
bezel calibrated to 60 minutes,
all that was required was to set
the triangle on the bezel to the
position of the minute hand and,
as minutes elapsed, they could
be read off easily.
“This safety device represents
considerable progress in deep
sea diving equipment,” wrote
Rebikoff, and he was right.
Above all, the Submariner was
dependable: functioning under
circumstances that would have
killed anyone wearing it. Within
a few years, a Submariner had
descended 10,916 metres into
the Mariana Trench and, in 2012,
James Cameron went back with
a Rolex outside his sub. Today’s
Deepsea model is waterproof to
3,900 metres; meanwhile, for
most divers, recreational diving
is limited to depths of 40 metres,
making use of about one per cent
of the watch’s true capability.
The popularity of the
Submariner soon spread
onto dry land and, even
though 007 has seen
many changes of
watch over the
years, its
appearance in
early James Bond
films stoked a unique
diving-suit-to-dinner-
jacket image. It was an
image that the brand
harnessed in one of its
advertisements from the late
1960s, depicting a male wrist, a
crisp shirt cuff and a Rolex
Submariner being fondled by a
female hand. “We invented the
Submariner to work perfectly
660 feet under the sea. It seems
to work pretty well at any level,”
ran the strap line. One wonders
if it would have been so
successful had it been called the
Rolex Frogman instead.Above, clockwise
from left: Swiss
physicist Auguste
Piccard and his
son, Jacques,
standing on the
top of the
bathyscape
Tr i e st e, 1953;
Piccard in 1952;
the first Rolex
Submariner, 1953.
Below: James
Cameron wearing
the Rolex Deepsea
Challenge 2012
(inset)AUTUMN 2019 VANITY FAIR ON TIME 59