Reply With QuoteWow. Good spot!
It is Marine Day in Japan today, a national holiday celebrating the bounty of the sea. Temperatures hitting 38 degrees and ideal, one might think, for a trip to the ocean or seaside to cool off. I decided instead to brave the depths of Shinjuku. I swam around with the shoal of tourists.
You will likely remember a video from 4 years ago, when Seiko tested their 1000m professional dive watches. 2 automatics and 2 quartz were selected at random...
The SBBN013 and SBDX011... and rather unceremoniously zip-tied to a board and plonked into a basket on a remote submersible:
Then the fun began....might as well watch it again:
Screen-grab of the watches still operating at 3000m...
The quartz stopped at 3284m and the auto went on to a rather staggering 4299m, well over two and half miles underwater.
Back on dry land in Shinjuku today at approximately 25m above sea level, I noticed a Seiko display of dive watches outside Yodobashi Camera. All the range were on display, nothing unusual there.
Except for these four...
The exact watches used in the test, still attached to the board!
Sorry for the poor picture. They were behind glass and it was in full glare of the sun. That red mark is a reflection of the store's logo.
The case back deformation was remarkable to see. The case deforming was what stopped the watch, not water ingress. (I think that must be why the seemingly perfectly-fine case back was replaced on my humble 300m tuna at service).
Quite astonished to see these. Might still be there (Yodobashi, Shinjuku) in case anyone is around. There is no song-and-dance, just a display outside the shop. Despite the crowds, I was the only one who noticed.
(credits: I took the screen-grabs from this article)
Last edited by Tokyo Tokei; 18th July 2018 at 00:46.
Wow. Good spot!
Amazing stuff Seiko make some serious dive watches.
they are big lumps of sexy.
Couldn't resist doing the sums. Assuming the crystal is 31.5mm dia, there would have been 2,400kgs pressing on it at 3,000m and almost 3,500kgs at 4,300m depth.
Of course the pressure is acting all the way round but that is a heck of a load on a mass produced item.
So the crystals shattered on the way back up? Or did they keep going deeper until they cracked?
And thanks for sharing a fascinating achievement.
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They kept going. The glass cracked on the quartz at 4804m and on the auto at 5993m.
Cracking find - thank you for sharing
Very cool
Quite surprised - and seriously impressed!
So these would have been ok to wear while washing up?
Interesting post, incredible pressures to crush the case backs like that.
Impressive stuff! Rain is about the most water my tuna has seen but shows those are serious bits of kit, thanks for sharing :-)
At least the straps survived intact...
Quality.
Amazing,why would the Auto go deeper?
Presumably both designed with the same tolerances for the 1000m depth rating so that depth plus whatever %, and after that point it was essentially luck of the draw?Originally Posted by bwest76
Some sample variation at way beyond rated depths is to be expected. I also suspect the far greater torque of a spring-powered movement allows it to soldier on under pressure beyond a quartz - which are relatively low torque and thus more easily stopped. The quartz case is also a little thinner (15.9mm) than the auto (17.2mm). The thicker case makes it slightly more spherical, closer to the perfect shape to resist pressure.
Last edited by Tokyo Tokei; 18th July 2018 at 06:39.
Thank you for the reply.
Thanks for posting, hadn't expected that photo, remarkable depths.
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
always want a 014 in gold though I have the 011
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