This watch by Rolex is one big fat catch, but why market it as a ‘diver’s watch’? I don’t know the habits of watch buyers and mine don’t fit in this scheme, yet I don’t think you would be impressed by something that reassures you that you are on time. Is it that you have an appointment to keep with a very special fish or have you been informed that the sharks will appear at such and such hour and you had better get to the shallows?
300 metres under water you would be looking at the sea bed, marveling at what nature has to offer, not looking at the time. I also don’t think any sensible person would want to go for a casual few laps in the pool with a watch on. Imagine skinny dipping with a timepiece…you can at least say you had something on.
So, anyone who wants to sell me anything water-resistant, think again. I only have my sweat and tears. And all the time for them.
FV, Actually, deep sea equipment needs to be fortified to withstand the extreme water pressure (many 1000s of times the air pressure we feel on land); otherwise, the watch will just get crushed at depths. In fact, the pressure is so high that in the old days, before there were decompression chambers, divers would come up to the surface really slowly -- if they came up too fast they would get the "bends" which can be fatal.
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/354eh5r
Also, it might be useful to know how long one has been underwater so as to when the oxygen tank is about to run out, which motivates the need for a diver's watch. Pretty sure ordinary watches would just get crushed if used by divers.
-Al
Al:
ReplyDeleteDamn! I was just trying to be smart and you had to outsmart me...I won't give you the time of day now :)
Hmmm...ok, thanks for all this stuff, but with all the tech advance can't they have a beeper that goes off to tell them about oxygen levels? This is for serious diving. The watch in the ad is regular consumer wear.
One can spend $10,000 for the Rolex Deep Sea - or mere $50 for the one that looks feels like a Rollie, even comes out-rigged with a helium relief valve to boot ... and as heavy. You know what I'd be sporting on my left wrist, if I were into something like that, but then tying a 2lb rock with a string sounds more manly.
ReplyDelete"I won't give you the time of day now :)"
ReplyDeleteFV, Fine! Be that way :-)
"Hmmm...ok, thanks for all this stuff, but with all the tech advance can't they have a beeper that goes off to tell them about oxygen levels?"
You cannot hear beeps underwater unless the frequencies of sound are very high -- lower frequencies get "damped" because of the water and do not travel very far...of course, if the gas tank has a headphone output this idea could work. Of course, the diver could also unstrap the oxygen tank to look at the air pressure gauge instead of turning over the wrist and looking at the watch, as the people who cannot afford expesive divers watches do...but hey, why waste time with that when you have an ocean to explore...
-Al
" the diver could also unstrap the oxygen tank to look at the air pressure gauge"
ReplyDeleteThe cheap way to get the best of both worlds is to dive in groups of two or more and monitor each other's gas tanks.
-Al
Anon and Al:
ReplyDeleteThanks for this peek into men's watches rather than what men watch...timeless...