Water and watches really don’t mix. Even the smallest amount of moisture inside a mechanical watch can corrode the gears, springs and screws essential to its operation and irreparably damage the dial, hands and decorative elements.
So for more than 150 years watchmakers have been selling timepieces said to be protected from water, beginning with pocket watches like L’Impermeable, introduced in 1864 by Alcide Droz & Sons of St. Imier, Switzerland.
But it was the onset of World War I — just as the watch itself was transitioning from the pocket to the wrist — that accelerated the need for water-resistant watches. In 1918, Charles Depollier, working with the Waltham Watch Company of Massachusetts, introduced the Field & Marine watch, which a government official told the U.S. Secretary of War was “a design of waterproof case in which a watch could actually run for several weeks under water.”
In 1926 Rolex patented the Oyster case, marketing the model as the world’s first waterproof watch. Both the Rolex and Waltham timepieces depended on screw-down crowns, screw-fit case backs and protective rubber gaskets to keep water out.
And in recent years both Rolex and Omega have created watches that operated during visits to Challenger Deep, which — at 10,935 meters (35,876 feet) — is the deepest known point in the ocean. During development, the brands said, those watches were tested under pressures that exceed anything found on earth.
With such achievements, you might conclude that watchmakers have triumphed over the elements. But is that really true?
And how can you be sure your own watch would withstand the surf off Waikiki or snorkeling in the Maldives? Or even humble chores like washing your car or watering the houseplants?
Standards vs. Guidelines
Most watches have what is called a water resistance rating of 30 meters to 100 meters (98 feet to 328 feet), implying they wouldn’t be harmed at those depths. Omega, for example, has said “a watch that is water-resistant to 30 meters can be worn for swimming at depths of up to 30 meters underwater for extended periods without restriction.”
But many brands’ advice on how to wear their watches is nowhere near as adventurous: A 30-meters watch is often described as “splash proof,” protected while washing your hands or venturing out in heavy rain; a 50-meters model would stand up to “light swimming,” according to Timex.
“Watch enthusiasts may get the impression that 3 atmospheres (equivalent to 30 meters under water) and ‘splash proof’ don’t quite go together,” Heike Ahrendt, the head of product management at the German watch brand Nomos Glashütte, wrote in an email. “This is understandable. The explanation is simple: Standard values are determined under laboratory conditions. These have little to do with real life wear. It is assumed that the water is not in motion, that it is not warm and that there is no soap dissolved in it. And what’s more, the test object is brand-new.”
Ms. Ahrendt said that Nomos preferred to be conservative in its claims — that, for example, a watch rated for 50 meters could be worn while showering — so customers’ experiences align with reality. But, she added, even seemingly innocuous bumps or bangs to a watch’s crown could impair its water resistance.
Brands’ measuring standards also are inconsistent. While most makers cite maximum depth standards in meters, IWC has used the pressure rating called a bar — and has said, for example, that a watch must have a water resistance of at least six bar to be worn safely during snorkeling.
How — in an industry so focused on precision and accuracy — did things get so confused?
“You have this issue of the brands themselves often advising the use of their watch, which totally contradicts what they’ve written on the watch themselves,” said Adrian Hailwood, a former watch boutique manager and auction house expert in Britain who now conducts courses for professionals entering the watch industry.
“You’ve got a country which is notoriously pedantic confusing itself and disagreeing with itself, and it began with the use of the term waterproof,’’ he said. “That ran up against all kinds of American legislation, and brands began to say water-resistant instead, because they wanted to sell into the American market.”
Advertising in the 1950s frequently referred to waterproof watches, but gradually such claims were forced to become more accurate, at least in the United States: The Federal Trade Commission noted in its 1960 annual report that it had cracked down on claims “that watches are guaranteed, shockproof and waterproof.”
But it would be another two decades before detailed guidelines on how to test and to describe a water-resistant watch were introduced globally by the 172-member International Organization for Standardization in Geneva, which sets standards for manufacturing and technology in many fields.
Risk Adverse
Actually, customers often find that watches outperform their makers’ pessimistic advice.
“Watch collectors joke about the fact that although Omega Speedmasters are in theory water-resistant, you wouldn’t dare do the washing up in them, but I know people who never take them off,” Mr. Hailwood said. “They go around in boats and they swim and it doesn’t leak.
“Switzerland is a country which is extraordinarily risk-averse,” he added. “Brands play it super safe. They’d rather restrict what you can do with it, even though they’ve said what it is capable of.”
Jason Heaton, an amateur diver, writer and watch enthusiast in Minnesota, estimated that he has dived with more than 200 mechanical watch models in the last two decades yet “fewer than five” have leaked. (His deepest dive was 55 meters.)
“Blancpain lent me a 1961 Tornek-Rayville once, a very rare military piece. And I had that down to about 40 meters at some point,” he wrote in an email. “I was terrified because there are probably only 10 left in the world. But it did just fine.
”I have a 1976 Tudor Submariner that I had completely serviced — new crystal, new stem and gaskets put in, and I’ve dived with that many times. People that are scared of taking a serviced vintage dive watch diving needn’t be.”
Some veteran divers are particularly blasé.
“You hardly ever see a proper old school analog dive watch on a dive boat anywhere in the world,” Mr. Heaton wrote. “But I’ve seen dive masters on boats that are diving with 20-year-old Casios, just little cheap things that don’t even have a meters rating, they just say waterproof.”
According to Mr. Hailwood, it is important to understand that a watch’s water resistance will change over time — whether an owner wears it to dive for shipwrecks off the coast of Egypt or just work at a desk.
“From the moment you buy the watch — actually, from the moment they make the watch — you’ve got a countdown timer that starts running to when it is no longer water-resistant,” Mr. Hailwood said. “You’ve got chlorine from pools, sodium chloride from sweat or seawater, alcohol from perfume or body sprays and just general grime all attacking the rubber seals. So that may be a long time or a short time.”
Many watchmakers now recommend longer service intervals than ever before — some even say their watches will run for a decade without intervention — but when it comes to maintaining water resistance, both brands and independent servicing specialists lean toward more frequent checkups.
“It differs from brand to brand,” said Sean Dawson, the service manager at Watchfinder, an online retailer of secondhand watches based in Britain. “But overall, the recommended time between a water resistance service including changing the gaskets/seals is every two years.”
Ultimately, using your watch safely around or in water involves checking the maker’s advice for usage and maintenance, erring on the side of caution and avoiding rookie mistakes.
“The majority of watches I see with water ingress are 50 meter to 100 meters water-resistant models,” Mr. Dawson added. “Most of the time, it is user error that causes water to get in; customers operating pushers and crowns in water or leaving them unscrewed before using the watch in water.”
Testing Advised
Servicing becomes particularly important for vintage models, according to Eric Wind, a dealer in Palm Beach, Fla., who is a former Christie’s watch specialist.
“In the pre-owned and vintage space,” he said, “even pre-owned modern watches, almost no one does water resistance checks, and that’s problematic. Auction houses really don’t do it; they just sell everything as is.”
It is a lesson that Mr. Wind himself learned the hard way. “The first vintage watch I ever purchased was a Seiko Rally Diver. I was in D.C., it was very humid, and it fogged up. I was like, ‘What the heck? I thought this was a dive watch?’ I wrote to the seller, and he says, ‘No, it’s an old dive watch. It doesn’t mean it’s water-resistant.’”
Mr. Wind said he tried to warn customers, describing how a recent buyer of a Seiko 62MAS wore the watch while splashing around in a New York City fountain with his daughter and then found that it had fogged up: “I thought, ‘Oh man, I’ve been there’.”
He has the watches that he sells tested by experts — usually using pressure chambers rather than water immersion, which could flood a flawed watch — and he has preached caution, even with relatively new watches.
“Sometimes you’ll see it where the crown won’t even screw in because it’s essentially worn out,” he said. “I’ve even seen that with five or 10-year-old Submariners. It was a big wake up call for us; now we check just to be safe.
“People buy these things and expect, as it’s a modern watch, they can dive or do whatever in the water with it, and in some cases you really can’t.”
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