Fighting the urge to panic, he attempted to execute a controlled ascent in order to give his body sufficient opportunity to decompress. On one occasion, whilst diving at a depth of 50m in Villefranche-sur-Mer, he lost track of time and suddenly realised he had run out of air. Like Maloubier and Riffaud, Fiechter’s motivation to create a robust diving watch also arose out of necessity. As a young man he had been fascinated by stories of hidden treasures patiently waiting to be discovered in the wrecks of sunken ships and that love for the sea had continued with him into adulthood. An avid historian and a passionate early member of Europe’s fledgling group of enthusiastic diving aficionados, he had grown up in Alexandria, Egypt, before going on to complete a degree in history. The Diving Enthusiast (And Swiss Watch CEO)Ĭoncurrently but in complete isolation from Maloubier and Riffaud, Jean-Jacques Fiechter, then CEO of centuries-old Swiss watch manufacturer, Blancpain, was working on a dive watch concept of his own. Recreational diving was still very much in its infancy. Following the war, the fashion of the time was aviation watches and there was no obvious commercial appeal for an over-engineered mechanical dive watch. The initial response from the watch industry ranged from disinterest to outright scorn. Plus, they didn’t exactly live up the manufacture’s promise of “a marvel of a dive watch.” Of the thirty samples Maloubier and his team tested, all were returned to the manufacturer, with the Captain famously declaring “they drowned to death.” Not exactly a stunning endorsement for a dive watch.Īlthough they were back to square one, Maloubier and Riffaud had learned much from this disappointing experience and set about drawing up their own version of what a suitable dive watch would look like water-proof, self-winding, anti-magnetic, legible in cloudy water and at night. For a start the sample watches produced were far too small, making them extremely difficult to read underwater. Initially, they approached a French watch manufacturer based in Besançon, who promised much but ultimately delivered little. Search as they might, they could not find a mechanical watch that was suitable for the specific and rather extreme needs of their men. In addition to forming this elite unit, Maloubier, and his Lieutenant, Claude aspirant Riffaud, were also tasked with equipping it with all necessary scuba gear, and therein lay the problem. Their leader was a fearless Frenchman by the name of Captain Robert “Bob” Maloubier, a veteran of the war and a former member of Winston Churchill’s Secret Army, the famed “British Secret Operations Executive.” The mission briefs for the French Frogmen included activities such as underwater intelligence, sabotage operations, and clandestine port-attacks. One such squadron was the French “Nageuers de combat” (French Forces Elite Diving Corps.), established by the French government in 1952 following the end of World War II. Prior to that, it was mainly an activity undertaken by various militaries, whose elite soldiers – often referred to as Frogmen or underwater commandos – were tasked with all sorts of special missions that required nerves of steel, incredible stamina and ultra-reliable equipment. It may surprise you to learn that recreational diving is still a relatively new concept (in the grand scheme of things) and didn’t really become a ‘thing’ until the 1950’s. With that in mind, we thought it apt to take a brief look at the history of what is considered to be the very first modern dive watch: the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms.
Now they are the domain of the everyman (and woman) who wants a great looking luxury watch that can be worn just about anywhere. Over-engineered, robust, yet versatile and comfortable enough to wear on a daily basis, dive watches are no longer just for hardcore enthusiasts who spend their weekends in scuba gear. Over the past few years, changing tastes and a general relaxing of office dress codes have seen the popularity of the mechanical dive watch grow and grow.
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