The new Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa

Blancpain continues to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Fifty Fathoms by unveiling a new model – Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa – designed to meet today’s technical diving requirements. All details, live photos and prices below.

The first modern diver’s watch

Launched in 1953, the Fifty Fathoms is the first modern diver’s watch. Created by a diver, Jean-Jacques Fiechter, to meet the needs of underwater exploration, it was chosen by diving pioneers and elite marine corps around the world as a professional timekeeping instrument. With its water resistance, robust doubled-sealed crown, self-winding movement, contrasting dark dial with luminescent indications, unidirectional rotating bezel and anti-magnetic protection, the Fifty Fathoms has become an indispensable instrument for divers on their underwater missions.

The idea behind the new Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa

The year 2023, which marks the 70th anniversary of the Fifty Fathoms, also resonates as a reboot of its birth through the arrival of an innovative anniversary diver’s watch. Since the 1950s, diving has experienced a major evolution, notably characterised by an obvious extension of immersion times. While the 1953 Fifty Fathoms met the requirements of Jean-Jacques Fiechter and the most experienced divers of the time, those now capable of spending several hours underwater have new requirements for time measurement. Such is precisely the case with Blancpain’s current President & CEO, who is also an avid scuba diver and has been accustomed to highly technical closed-circuit dives for a number of years. Drawing on the invaluable heritage of the 1953 Fifty Fathoms, but also and above all on his own experiences, the CEO embarked on the design – alongside diver, photographer and underwater biologist Laurent Ballesta – of a new mechanical instrument. It was intended to meet the needs of all extreme divers, starting with the members of the Gombessa Expeditions whose research work involves long- duration deep dives. With Blancpain’s support, these deep-sea adventurers have joined forces in the multi-year Tamataroa mission. Dedicated to the study of the behaviour of the great hammerhead shark, Sphyrna mokarran, in French Polynesia, this project is led by a committee of passionate deep-sea divers, including Marc A. Hayek and Laurent Ballesta. Observation and information gathering regarding this species continued through technical dives on Rangiroa Atoll, aimed at contributing to the implementation of management measures promoting its conservation.

The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa

It is in this context that the latest addition to the Fifty Fathoms collection was presented for the first time: the Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa watch 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 the development of 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. This watch invented jointly by Marc A. Hayek and Laurent Ballesta is a world first for which a patent has been filed.

Once the combination of bezel and movement was defined, it was time to tackle the exterior of this new watch designed to plumb the depths. The brief was clear yet meeting it proved tricky: the Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa had to look like a Fifty Fathoms while exhibiting distinct tech attributes. Blancpain’s designers therefore opted for a bezel inlay in black ceramic – instead of the traditional sapphire – which they decided to endow with a stronger curve and tilt it towards the dial. The latter’s legibility is optimised by a spherical crystal that eliminates any visual distortion. To ensure the best possible readability in the dark, the dial has a new finish: absolute black, whose structure is able to capture almost 97% of the light. In the same vein, 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. Recently introduced to the Blancpain collections, this metal also known as grade 5 ELI (extra low interstitials) is the purest type of titanium available. It is distinguished by exceptional strength and anti-allergenic properties, while being remarkably light. This material ensures that the watch is comfortable to wear and guarantees a barely-there feel on the wrist despite the 47 mm diameter. This is especially true since the watch features – in a first for Blancpain – central lugs attached from the inside of the case middle and integrating the strap. Water-resistant to 30 bar (approximately 300 metres), the case is equipped with a helium valve. During saturation diving in a hyperbaric chamber, helium manages to seep into the watch. During the decompression phase, unscrewing the valve facilitates the evacuation of the helium (a manipulation that has no effect on the watch’s water resistance). The notches of the helium valve are identical to those of the winding and time-setting crown that enables simultaneous setting of the hours, minutes and dive-time hands. As with all Fifty Fathoms timepieces, the crown is screwed down and associated with a crown guard that now features a new trapeze-shaped design ensuring visual consistency with the lugs. Inside is the automatic calibre 13P8 with 120 h of power reserve.

This watch could sound like a really big one (47 mm), but on the wrist it looks reasonably, thanks to the absence of lugs and is really comfortable, thanks to the light titanium case and good ergonomic.

Below you can see how this watch will look like on your wrist while diving.

The Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa comes in a special PeliTM presentation box that is water-resistant and shock-resistant as well as reusable and configurable. The case houses a rest for the watch, the strap extension, a travel pouch, a magnifying glass, as well as a set of dividers and cutting tools offering the possibility of compartmentalising it for any future use.

I had a chance to see and try the new Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa. It’s a great watch. It has new design elements that give a modern and fresh look to the watch while still keeping the identity of the brand and it was created to cover specific needs of the modern divers, featuring the functions that we didn’t see before in diving watches.

The price and availability

The price of the Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa is €28,450 and it will be part of the regular collection, though we can expect that this watch will be produced in lower quantities.

Facts about Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa

Check my Instagram @todayonthewrist to see videos of the Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa. All details about Blancpain you can find on www.blancpain.com