Blancpain celebrates the 70th anniversary of the Fifty Fathoms with a new model: The Tech Gombessa

Blancpain continues to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Fifty Fathoms from Rangiroa Atoll in French Polynesia, where the Tamataroa mission is taking place.

The brand has opened a new chapter in the history of the first modern diver’s watch by presenting a new model designed to meet today’s diving requirements. Featuring an innovation co-developed by Marc A. Hayek, President and CEO of Blancpain, and Laurent Ballesta, founder of the Gombessa project, this instrument called ‘Tech Gombessa’ allows, for the first time, dive times of up to three hours to be measured.

Its launch commemorates 10 years of Gombessa, an initiative that Blancpain helped to create by becoming a founding partner of the project from its inception in 2013. It also marks the launch of a new line in Blancpain’s collection of diver’s watches.

Seventy years ago, an icon was born: the Fifty Fathoms. A timepiece that would revolutionise watchmaking by becoming the first modern diver’s watch. It was conceived by Jean-Jacques Fiechter, then director of Blancpain, who was passionate about this aquatic discipline. He understood the need to keep track of dive time and designed the perfect tool to meet all his needs.

By improving diving safety, the Fifty Fathoms contributed to the development of the sport and promoted the discovery of the oceanic world, while becoming the infallible ally of elite divers and underwater explorers.

Now, seventy years after its birth, it announces its rebirth with the arrival of an innovative anniversary dive watch. Today’s divers have new demands on timekeeping material, so the new silhouette, the Tech Gombessa, has been designed to measure the duration of long technical dives or out of a saturation set of up to three hours.

The development of this new watch is based on two key elements: the movement and the unidirectional rotating bezel. Unlike conventional diver’s watch bezels, the bezel of the Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa features a graduated three-hour scale. In addition, the exterior design was approached to adapt it to the depths and included bulging and tilting the wait to ensure the best possible readability and eliminate any visual distortion. The absolute black of the dial captures 97% of the light, while the indices are made up of luminescent and domed appliques in orange and blue emission, as are the hour and minute hands to differentiate the hour information from the dive times.