To The Abyss And Back

The claim that the new Rolex Oyster Perpetual Deepsea Challenge defies limits is an understatement

FOR A WATCH TO BE CERTIFIED TO WITHSTAND PRESSURE AT DEPTHS OF 11,000 METRES, IT MUST FIRST FACE PRESSURES OF UP TO A CRUSHING 13,750 METRES.

A DECADE AGO, Rolex Testimonee James Cameron, the filmmaker behind 1998 Oscar’s Best Picture winner Titanic and the upcoming Avatar: The Way of Water, caught our imagination yet again, this time without the movie magic of the silver screen. On a mild day in late March of 2012, Mr. Cameron in a custom-built submersible submerged some 10,908 meters into the Mariana Trench, Earth’s farthest depths.

This would mark the second time in history that an experimental Rolex watch would plunge into the Trench. Before that, in January 1960, oceanographer Jacques Piccard and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh went down some 10,911 meters aboard the historic bathyscaphe Trieste, with the Rolex Deep Sea Special in hand.