BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
If you’re the WristReview superfan that I know you can be, you’ll probably think that we appeared to have covered the new Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Tech around this time last year. Although it looks like the same watch at first glance, I guarantee this new release is, in fact, a different piece. I still had to do a double-take, though, maybe that says more about me.
The first giveaway that this is a different watch is the extra orange hand on the Absolute Black (absorbing up to 97% of light for a reflection-free finish) dial, which comes from the Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa limited-edition piece from a few years ago. That watch was designed for scuba divers using rebreather systems, which operate differently from divers breathing from cylinders filled with compressed gases. Rebreathers allow divers to stay underwater much longer by removing exhaled carbon dioxide and replacing it with oxygen to be inhaled again.
This method of supplying oxygen allows for extended dive sessions, typically up to three hours underwater, much longer than 30 to 60 minutes provided by a diving cylinder. The orange hand on the new Fifty Fathoms Tech ref 5019A is geared to perform one rotation every three hours, so rebreather divers can use the watch without having to remember which hour of the dive they’re in. Also of note is the dive bezel, which has graduations marking 30-minute segments up to 3 hours, rather than 15-minute segments up to one hour, as on a traditional diving watch.
Inside the watch is the self-winding calibre 13P5A, which is fitted with three barrels for an impressive five-day (120-hour) power reserve. It also has a 4Hz beat rate and a date window, and it can be seen through the sapphire crystal caseback.
The movement is set within a chunky 47mm x 14.8mm grade 23 titanium case with 300m of water resistance, which, you may or may not be pleased to spot, comes with a helium escape valve. The manually opening helium escape valve does have a function (to prevent trapped helium from causing the watch to rupture outwards during decompression), but its use has been a divisive point on watches made by Blancpain’s Swatch Group sister brand, Omega, for years.
The new watch comes with an orange rubber strap, although black and white straps are available and easy to swap out with a built-in quick-change system. Now a member of the permanent collection, the new Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Tech ref. 5019A is priced at CHF20,500. It does come with a Pelican case like other Fifty Fathoms models, which is cool.
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