BLANCHET Extreme Activity Watch DEEP DIVE [it's all in the details]

Now this is an interesting new diver – solid, good-looking and with plenty of cool details, it features a unique bezel-locking-mechanism that until now has only been witnessed on a mythical diver from the past!



Introducing the Extreme Activity Watch DEEP DIVE from Blanchet, an historic Swiss watch brand, that was originally founded by Jean Blanchet in 1819. Blanchet had great success right up until 1914, when disaster struck and the entire factory was destroyed!



The current owner of Blanchet is the Italian based, D GROUP, who relaunched the brand in 2010. The Deep Dive is said to be inspired by original drawings created by Jean Blanchet, a French master watchmaker with a fascination for submarines.



I couldn’t comment on Jean Blanchet’s drawings because I’ve never seen them but going by the Deep Dive’s Tonneau-shaped case with elongated crown guard that extends down to bottom right lug and its ratcheting bezel system that is locked via a specialized lug with a retractable hood –



I’d say that whoever designed the Blanchet’s Deep Dive took a long hard look at the Rolex U.S. MARINE Prototype watch before embarking on the project – that isn’t to say that it’s an out and out copy of the U.S MARINE but it has certainly made good use of its most distinguishable features.



These however have been tweaked to give the Blanchet Deep Dive its own chunky character. However, there are a number of design elements that I not convinced by –



the Aquatimer derived bezel inlay, the strange stencilled font used for the dive-time scale and dial markers, the ring around the date window and the digital dial text –



I must admit the bulky case design, the bezel mechanism (cribbed or not) and all the attention to detail that has been lavished on the Blanchet Deep Dive make it a very appealing prospect.



Features of the Blanchet Deep Dive include: a 44mm x 17mm brushed Stainless steel or PVD-coated Monobloc case with Helium Escape Valve, 4mm-thick double-domed Sapphire crystal with 6-layer anti-reflective treatment,



Superluminova with 10x photoluminescence, 1000 meters of water-resistance, a black rubber divers strap with 316L Stainless steel Stingray-design buckle and COSC certified ETA 2824 or SW 200 automatic mechanical movement.



There are six variants of the Blanchet Deep Dive of which two are GMT models.