Blancpain presents a new Fifty Fathoms with a unique bezel design as it celebrates the watch’s 70th anniversary and a decade of partnership with the Gombessa Expedition.

Earlier this week, Blancpain hosted a live stream from the Rangiroa Atoll in French Polynesia. There, the Mokarran Protection Society and the Gombessa Expedition are partnering on an ongoing mission – the Tamataroa Project, christened after the local name for the great hammerhead shark. The mission involves counting the number of critically endangered sharks traversing the waters and learning their behaviour and the reason for their migration through the region.

This multi-year project is supported by Blancpain and led by Tatiana Boube, the coordinator for the non-profit’s scientific department. Laurent Ballesta, who leads the Gombessa Expedition and is a long-time ambassador of Blancpain, is also participating in the project with his team. Ballesta is assisting with the technical needs of the Tamataroa Project, which requires divers to remain underwater for long periods of time to achieve their goals.

Staying Underwater

To do so, the diving team uses closed-circuit rebreathers (CCR), a specialised diving gear that recycles the air in the diving tank. This does two things: it allows divers to remain underwater for much longer than a full tank of air or other gas mixes would (typically 45 minutes to an hour for one full tank). It also means that no bubbles are released during diving, so marine animals are less likely to stay away. Even though the mission involves studying the animals from a distance, this minimises affecting their natural behaviours.

Ballesta first became a Blancpain ambassador with the first Gombessa mission in 2013. Over 40 days, a team of researchers and trained divers, including him, dove deep into the waters in search of the cœlacanth, a species of bony fish that are a key evolutionary bridge between land and sea creatures. There have been five more expeditions since, each accomplishing a technical and scientific challenge. The Gombessa team is especially skilled at developing new technical diving solutions to suit their mission requirements.

With the Tamataroa mission, Ballesta’s team not only supported the project but also came up with an idea for Blancpain – to create a Fifty Fathoms diving watch that would be able to stay as long as the divers would underwater. And after five years of work, Marc A Hayek, CEO of Blancpain, with Laurent Ballesta, unveiled the Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa.

The Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa

Because CCR and the scientific equipment used by the researchers need to be loaded up before the divers go into the water, that can sometimes create a discrepancy between the dive computers measuring diving times and the actual time the diver is spending underwater. Things like decompression times, et cetera, then need to be re-calculated.

Ballesta came up with the idea for a diving watch that would be able to calculate up to three hours – the length of time a CCR diver typically spends underwater and the maximum recommended dive time during training. Of course, experts like Ballesta can spend much more time than that underwater, even up to 24 hours, but for most people using it, three hours is more than ample.

While the concept seems relatively simple, the design of the watch and movement is a little more complicated. Additional wheels adjoin the hour wheel and drive a second hour hand on the dial. This hand takes three hours to complete a revolution on the dial. The design of this function has been patented by Blancpain. The movement, the 13P8 calibre, which is self-winding and highly robust, offers a five-day power reserve. The rotor, visible through the caseback, features the Gombessa Expedition logo.

On the large ceramic bezel, instead of a 60-minute track, it displays up to three hours of time, indicated in hours and minutes. The decision not to only use minutes is in part because the 60 and 90 could be misread by accident, but also because of legibility. Additional markings between the Arabic numerals on the bezel represent five-minute intervals. The dial is in matte black, which further ensures legibility in the dark.

The diamond marker is the start and conclusion of the three-hour and can be set to any time when the dive starts. On the dial, oversized orange applied indexes indicate the hours, with a minute track ring surrounding them. The indexes are block-shaped, and it’s unclear what they are made of – likely a high-tech polymer with luminous material ensuring visibility throughout the diving time. A spherical crystal protects the bezel and enhances legibility underwater. The luminous details on the bezel glow green, while those on the dial glow blue in the dark.

The watch is made of grade 23 titanium, the purest form of titanium around and least likely to corrode or oxidise, which is a common issue if you’re spending long periods of time in salt water. It’s water-resistant to 300m and comes with a helium escape valve to prevent damage to the watch when professional divers like Ballesta perform saturation diving with a hyperbaric chamber.

Because the watch is designed for professional diving, its size is rather large at 47mm in diameter and 14.81mm thick. To ensure the watch wears well on the wrist, the brand had to redesign the lugs and build a central integrated link to which the rubber strap is attached. The moulded form of the bracelet means it cannot flex fully but still manages to fit most wrist sizes well. The strap is reinforced with titanium to ensure it does not deform over time.

This watch is the second act of Blancpain’s 70th-anniversary celebration of the Fifty Fathoms. While it isn’t a limited edition, it is highly limited in production due to the many technical processes needed to manufacture the watch. In fact, only a handful of pieces are available in Southeast Asia. The good news is if you don’t get the watch today, you’ll be able to get hold of it eventually. The Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa is priced at S$40,000 and available via Blancpain’s boutiques at the moment or order through authorised retailers.

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