Two historically revered watches make a comeback with some technical tweaks

Blancpain
A diver designed the Fifty Fathoms collection by Blancpain for fellow divers to meet the needs of underwater explorations in 1953. This timekeeping instrument celebrates 70 years and is still creating ripples in the watchmaking universe in more ways than one.

The anniversary celebrations include the debut of the Tech Gombessa watch, co-developed by Marc A Hayek, president and CEO of Blancpain, and Laurent Ballesta, founder of the Gombessa project. The debut was made via Zoom, where the media was taken to the Rangiroa Atoll in French Polynesia amid the Tamataroa mission. Tamataroa is dedicated to studying the behaviour of the great hammerhead shark (Sphyrna mokarran) in French Polynesia.

The Tech Gombessa marks the launch of a new line in Blancpain's diver’s watch collection. An updated 1953 version, the watch was co-designed with Hayek, an avid diver himself, and diver, photographer and underwater biologist Ballesta. The watch is designed to measure the duration of up to three-hour-long tech dives or exits from a saturation system. Developed five years ago by the two divers, this watch has been extensively tested. In 2019, after a year of conceptualisation, Blancpain began developing the project, starting with the two key elements represented by the movement and the unidirectional rotating bezel.

Unlike the bezels on conventional diver's watches, the bezel on the Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa has a three-hour scale. It is linked to a special hand that completes one full turn in three hours and whose material and colour – a white luminescent coating with green emission – match those of its markers. The Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa is equipped with a bezel inlay in black ceramic that creates a stronger curve that tilts towards the dial, and legibility is optimised by a spherical crystal that eliminates any visual distortion.

Reading time underwater is crucial, so to ensure the best possible readability in the dark, the dial has a new finish: absolute black, whose structure can capture almost 97% of the light. Similarly, the hour-markers are formed by luminescent block-shaped appliques, this time in orange with blue emission – colour codes picked up on the hours and minutes hands to differentiate between time-related information and diving times.

Grade 23 titanium was chosen for the case that is light enough to carry the 47mm diameter face and is water-resistant to 30 bar (approximately 300m). The case is equipped with a helium valve. The back of the watch shows off the bevelled rather than the rounded “bassine” shape characterising the other Fifty Fathoms models. The anthracite-coloured oscillating weight, stamped with the Gombessa Expeditions logo, features an innovative shape dominated by three large openings through which to admire the movement. The black rubber strap is screwed to the back of the lugs.