142 Watchtime December
142 Watchtime December
142 Watchtime December
Deep
3
A professional diver helped us test a trio
of distinctively designed divers’ watches in
their intended element. BY MARTINA RICHTER
PHOTOS BY ZUCKERFABRIK FOTODESIGN
e all know what makes a genuine divers’ Dirk Sonntag went deep in a diving tow-
W
watch: at least 200-meter water resist- er with four mechanical divers’ watches
ance, a dial that is easy to read in day- priced from $2,000 to $4,000 and ren-
light and in the darkness of deep water, dered his professional opinions on their
and a rotating bezel to securely track merits and shortcomings. For this issue,
dive times. And who better to put divers’ Sonntag tried out a trio of divers’ watch-
watches through their paces than a pro- es priced above $4,000: the Buran
fessional diver? For the June 2011 issue Stingray, Omega Seamaster Ploprof and
of WatchTime, German diving instructor Porsche Design P’6780 Diver.
BURAN STINGRAY The movement, an ETA/Valjoux 7750 the model’s namesake sea creature and al-
This watch’s exterior, which calls to mind whose chronograph mechanism has been so specifies its water-resistance in meters.
a Russian battleship or submarine, removed, performs with acceptable rate It’s also engraved with the serial number
speaks to the Buran brand’s Russian her- values. The watch loses an average of on- and the number of the limited edition:
itage, but inside, it’s all Swiss. Moscow- ly half a second per day, with the inaccu- our test watch was number 149 in a series
based Volmax, which owns Buran, has racy resulting from deviations in the “di- of 500. The back is well made and so are
moved the brand’s headquarters to al down” and “crown up” positions; it the lugs, clasp and crown. The crown is
Switzerland, and the Stingray, an amal- gains slightly in all the other positions. topped by a protective cover, which the
gam of Russian design and Swiss time- The automatic caliber is unembell- wearer must remove before operating the
keeping technology, is a full-fledged ished but lives up to its reputation for re- crown — a feature that works well and
“Swiss made” timepiece. liability. It ticks behind a massive, bipar- gives an impression of reliability and se-
tite, screwed back that helps keep the ti- curity. The out-of-the-ordinary styling of
tanium case water-resistant to 300 me- the cover conforms to the watch’s bold,
Diver Dirk Sonntag found it difficult to position ters. The handsome caseback portrays boastful design, but upon removing it,
the bezel. He also criticized the short strap. the wearer will note that the crown itself
is rather small. Despite this, it is surpris-
ingly easy to operate, for manually wind-
ing the mainspring, quickly resetting the
date display and adjusting the positions
Pros of the hands. Only a little dexterity and a
+ Rate performance bit of pressure are needed to screw the
+ Bezel clicks neatly cover securely back in place.
into place Equally high quality distinguishes the
+ Easy-to-use crown screwed connections on the rubber strap
+ High-quality strap and clasp, as well as the strap itself. Un-
and clasp
fortunately, the strap is much too small
Cons for the watch: it’s thick, sturdy, and firm-
ly attached to the lugs, but it’s much too
– Day/night legibility
– No calibrations on short to be securely fastened around the
bezel sleeve of a diving suit, as Sonntag noticed
– Too-short strap right away while suiting up for the diving
with no divers’ pool. He lamented the absence of an ex-
extension
tension piece, which he had rightly ex- scale, and the eight hexagonal Allen bolts Last but not least, the two metal stirrups
pected to find on a divers’ watch that only add to the confusion. “This is a to- over the dial significantly obstruct the
costs $4,799. He would even have settled tally flawed design, if you ask me,” Sonn- view without serving an actual function;,
for an intervening piece with a second tag said, pointing out that a precise why they are there is anybody’s guess.
pronged buckle, a strap-lengthening solu- minute circle is indispensable on the bezel
tion that’s very popular among divers and of a divers’ watch. In the instructions that
widely used by them. come with the watch, Buran suggests us-
After some effort, Sonntag finally fas- ing the triangle to clock the duration of a
tened the Stingray to his wrist, albeit un- dive, but Sonntag insisted that was not a
der the sleeve of his suit, and reported viable method for doing so. Furthermore,
that it fit quite well but that it was some- he found it impossible to work profes-
what too large for his taste. He usually sionally with the minute circle because its
likes to keep his watch’s dial in view calibrations are marked on the steeply
when diving, but he couldn’t do this with sloping flange around the dial, where
the Stingray. they’re either difficult or impossible to
Sonntag had trouble when he tried to read even in daylight. In the dark, it’s
set the rotating bezel, which can be worse, because the calibrations have no
grasped only at one point: namely, on its luminous coating. In Sonntag’s opinion,
raised orientation triangle, which is staying oriented to the nearest minute is
pointy and sharp-edged. “If your hands crucial for a diver, and a watch that does-
are wet, and especially if you’re wearing n’t enable him to do so is inexcusably
diving gloves, your fingers slide along the flawed.
ridged periphery without taking hold,” When a diver wears a Stingray under
he said. His next setback came after he water, he can encounter situations in
had finally gotten a grip on the triangle which the watch is no longer easy to read.
and attempted to bring the rotating bezel The entire lower portion of the dial is dif-
into position — only to lose its orienta- ficult or impossible to make out in the
tion. The unidirectional bezel clicks im- dark. It not only has no to-the-minute The lower part of the dial is hard
peccably into place in one-minute incre- orientation; it also fails to offer even to read in the dark.
ments, but is entirely without a calibrated vague segments of five, 10 or 15 minutes.
SPECS
OMEGA SEAMASTER PLOPROF
The Ploprof’s features
include a sapphire crystal Manufacturer: Omega SA, Rue Stämpfli
over the bezel, raised 96, 2504 Bienne, Switzerland
appliqués, and a dominant
minute hand. Reference number: 224.30.55.21.01.001
Functions: Hours, minutes, central
seconds, divers’ bezel, date display,
helium-release valve
Movement: Omega 8500, automatic;
diameter = 29 mm; height = 5.5 mm; 39
jewels; 25,200 vph; Omega balance;
Nivarox hairspring; Nivachoc shock
absorber; fine adjustment via two Torx
screws; beveled edges; skeletonized
rotor; polished white-gold screws;
decorated with circular graining and
Geneva waves in Arabesque pattern;
certified chronometer
Case: Stainless steel with nonreflective
sapphire crystal, water-resistant to 1,200
meters
Bracelet and clasp: Stainless-steel
Milanese bracelet with pressure-activated
folding clasp and divers’ extension piece
Dimensions: Diameter = 55.3 mm x 47.9
mm, height = 17.5 mm, weight = 280
grams
Price: $9,700
PORSCHE DESIGN P’6780 DIVER ed bridge comprise the two main ele-
If the P’6780 Diver’s pivoting case looks ments of the watch’s innovative design. It
familiar, there is a reason: it made its de- was Sonntag’s learning that the pivoting
but in 2005 on the Kon-Tiki divers’ mechanism, which moves the case up and
watch from Eterna, the Swiss watch man- down, aided in the watch’s security that
ufacturer that is licensed to produce and convinced him of its usefulness.
distribute Porsche Design watches. The The divers’ bezel is a flange around
P’6780 Diver came out in 2010 and, like the periphery of the dial and beneath the
the Kon-Tiki, it has a case water-resistant sapphire crystal, which is slightly curved
to an impressive 1,000 meters. and is nonreflective on both its surfaces.
Sonntag was a bit Only when the case is pivoted out of the
skeptical about this bridge can the bezel be rotated and reset.
watch at first, dismiss- This is done with the aid of the outer part
ing the peculiar case as of the bezel, and is easy even under water
a “plaything.” Eventu- and with diving gloves. Clous de Paris
ally, however, he was decorations along the rim of the bezel
won over, praising its make it easier to get a good grip. The
interesting construc- same pattern appears on the crown and
tion. The steel on the push-buttons used to make the
case can be pivot- case pivot.
ed out of a titani- The bezel rotates in only one direction
um bridge with and clicks authoritatively into place in
the help of two single-minute increments. At the 6
pressure-sensi- o’clock position on the edge of the case, a
tive buttons. The pair of pins mesh visibly with teeth on the
pale, matte case lower part of the bezel, thus preventing it All the important elements are easy to read in the
and the anthracite- from turning in the opposite direction. dark: the hour and minute hands, the indices and
colored, bead-blast- The pins penetrate the entire addition to the calibrations on the rotating bezel.