The Seamaster 1000M Prototype It was not until the mid-20th century that Jacques Cousteau and Émile Gagnan developed the frst open circuit SCUBA tank that allowed for growth within both the commercial and recreational dive felds. Alongside this new technology arose the need for precision timepieces that were not only waterproof, but also maintained integrity at depth and decompression. Many watch brands sought to enter the feld of dive tool watches. Omega sought the advice of Frédéric Robert founder and owner of the Geneva based dive frm, “Aquastar”. They sought to develop and test designs watches that must endure some of the toughest environments in the world. The 1960s saw the increased use of saturation diving, in which a diver’s bloodstream was saturated with helium at the same pressure as the surrounding water. This was done pre-dive and allowed the decompression time and dive duration to be independent of each other.
HK_WATCHES_MAY18_Session2_156-327.indd 197
While this allowed for longer dives multiple days a day, it created a problem for watch brands, helium seeped in to the watch during the saturation process with no efect, however during decompression, the gas would forcible come out of the watch, ofen blowing the crystal of the watch. Frédéric Robert suggested a new design with mono-block case to keep helium from entering the watch in the frst place. Omega created two watches the “PloProf” with angular case and the Seamaster 1000 with a rounded case. Both watches underwent testing and while both were successful, divers found the rounder case and easier operating bezel of the Seamaster 1000 more compatible. Both models would be commercialized, but it would take longer to bring the Seamaster 1000 to market.
16/04/18 15:01