In 1968, the dive world is still in a fledgling stage. The pioneer Jacques Cousteau is exploring the seas. While the forward-thinking engineers from Favre Leuba launch the Bathy diving watch. The first wristband watches with a depth gauge for divers, and today a precious item for collectors.
2018, diving has become a recreational sport. But there are still a lot of underwater territories to be explored. The Behind the Mask video crew is diving into the world’s seas to bring home outstanding underwater footage. Meanwhile, the launch of the new Bathy 120 MemoDepth diving watch is celebrated in Switzerland.
As a strong partner of Behind the Mask, Favre Leuba supports the film crew with diving watches. Recently the team was able to test the new Bathy 120 MemoDepth on a shoot in the islands of the Azores.
We felt honoured to dive into the Bathy 120 MemoDepth diving watch. The watch is a follow-up to a remarkable milestone in the history of diving. But diving has changed since the early days and this is why we are very happy that the new depth gauge allows us to explore until a depth of 120 meters. In exploration diving, it is sometimes necessary to dive very deep to conquer new frontiers. Also, we work with a lot of freedivers, and they passed the 50-meter mark on their way to success a long time ago.
As well as there are advanced techniques necessary for deep diving, advanced engineering is necessary to create the right tools. We are impressed with the new membrane design and the special alloy for the depth meter. Only through this new development, the engineers from Favre Leuba were able to guarantee this big improvement. But still keeping the mechanical design in wristband watch size.
The watch mechanism is hand-wound. In addition, the depth gauge, and power-reserve indicator are fully mechanical. We like to rely on mechanical instruments because where there are no electronics, there is less potential for failure.
The water pressure enters through slits on the back of the diving watch. The slits have been carefully designed in the style of the Favre Leuba logo. The pressure then connects with the membrane of the depth gauge. This is a very detail-oriented design characteristic, which we appreciate because we work according to the same philosophy on our own products. In design, detail is everything. In addition, the depth meter is easy to maintain. You take a coin and open the housing to clean the salt out with fresh water after diving.
In the field, we liked the big size of the instrument. This enables us to ascertain our dive times and depth clearly. It is easy to compare the watch to our underwater cameras. In the end, it is not about who has the biggest tool, but it is about the most precise and reliable working technology inside. Most often this goes hand in hand with a bigger size.
Besides the regular watch functions include hours, minutes, seconds, and the date display. The watch offers you the current dive depth, the maximum dive depth, and a unidirectional, rotating bezel. The latter allows you to keep track of your dive time while scuba diving. Remarkable to us, are the coloured zones on the dial splitting up the dive into different zones and the red indicators marking the depths to complete our decompression stops at.
It is comforting to know, that if necessary, we could even take the watch down to 200 meters. Since the housing is tested until these depths, just the depth meter would show 120 meters at any depth deeper than 120.
We also enjoyed diving with the watch during free dives. Even though it has a larger case, the rubber strap kept the watch tight to our wrist. Therefore the watch had a good hydrodynamic position. When it got a bit dark down at 40 meters, we could still see the blue figure showing the current depth due to the luminous indexes. These are placed on the dial in ten-meter steps. After we surfaced we checked the maximum depth. We could then reset the indicator by unscrewing the crown and pressing it once.
All in all, we think the Bathy 120 MemoDepth is a great, multifunctional diving watch. Ideal for adventurers and divers that have exceptional demands when it comes to design and functionality. We will definitely take it to many more of our exploratory missions.
