Rolex Deepsea

The Deepsea Challenge reaffirms Rolex’s legitimacy as a pioneering brand in the world of watches for deep-sea diving and its expertise in waterproofness and resistance to underwater pressure.

This 50 mm watch is an adaptation of the Rolex Deepsea Challenge – the experimental watch that accompanied filmmaker and explorer James Cameron into the Mariana Trench in 2012, attached to the exterior of his submersible.

Crafted from RLX titanium, the Deepsea Challenge is available with an intense black dial and features a unidirectional rotatable bezel with graduated Cerachrom insert in black ceramic.

Rolex’s patented Ringlock system equips the brand’s divers’ watches designed for extreme depths, the Rolex Deepsea and the Deepsea Challenge. An extension of the research dedicated to the waterproofness of the Oyster, this system is a reinforced case architecture comprising a thick, slightly domed sapphire crystal, a high-performance compression ring, and a case back made from RLX titanium.

The compression ring is crafted from a nitrogen-alloyed steel on the Rolex Deepsea in Oystersteel and the Deepsea Challenge, while it is manufactured in a blue high-tech ceramic – a first for this component – on the 18 kt yellow gold version of the Rolex Deepsea.

In deep-sea diving, absolute reliability and security are of the essence. The waterproofness of every Rolex Deepsea and Deepsea Challenge watch is tested with a safety margin of 25 percent, in accordance with the standard in effect for divers’ watches.

The Rolex Deepsea, guaranteed waterproof to a depth of 3,900 meters, is thus effectively subjected to the pressure exerted at 4,875 meters deep, while the Deepsea Challenge, waterproof to 11,000 meters, is subjected to the pressure exerted at 13,750 meters deep.

For these stringent tests, the brand developed a special hyperbaric tank for the Rolex Deepsea and an ultra-high-pressure (UHP) tank for the Deepsea Challenge in conjunction with Comex (Compagnie Maritime d’Expertises), the world-renowned French company specializing in underwater engineering and hyperbaric technologies.