Another great feature of dive watches, is an easy to differentiate minute hand.
I like oversize minute hands like the Seiko's arrows, but particularly like bright orange ones like the one on the Ploprof.
So who came up with the idea and implemented it first on it's dive watch? Was it Squale, Doxa or Omega?
Does it stem back to military watches for easier counting of seconds.
Last edited by Sinnlover; 9th November 2022 at 10:19.
Edit: Ignore me
Last edited by SteveHarris; 9th November 2022 at 10:54.
Yep it seems it was more common on Chronographs before divers. The flightmaster is seen with both yellow and orange chrono hands from 69 onwards
The OP asked re divers and I am trying to rack my brains on this. I think the first were the Omega the more it think about it.
Wasn’t there a paper written re colours at depth which is where the old wives tale about orange being the the last colour to disappear came from?
Edit it was by Kinney, Wisemann et al in 1967.
It can be googled.
Last edited by Sinnlover; 9th November 2022 at 15:02.
The orange version of the Zodiac Sea Wolf perhaps?
vintagecertinas (the site) seems to indicate that Certina was using orange minute hands on Argonauts, pH200m, and pH500m Tektites from 1968.
The super sea wolf was released in 1970, this version came out a year or 2 later I think.
https://thespringbar.com/blogs/guide...diac-sea-wolf/
A good guide to various Sea Wolf models can be read here
Last edited by Sinnlover; 9th November 2022 at 19:41.
The lack of light is not the issue the coloured hand is trying to solve. Colour perception in water changes with depth quite rapidly, the removal of certain light wavelengths with depth alter what we see. Some colours (blue) are visible a lot deeper than orange and red. - or at least that is my understanding, this led to the introduction (rightly or wrongly) of certain colours used in dive watch dials and hands. It’s to add contrast.
Last edited by Sinnlover; 9th November 2022 at 21:07.
You haven't specified what depths you're referring to, but during daytime it is usually light enough to see at depths far greater than recreational divers will encounter - and even most technical divers too. So torches are mainly needed for caves, wrecks and night diving - even for the latter there is still a certain amount of ambient light,
But a torch is useful for getting a clearer view of objects even before you reach the limits of recreational diving - and of course they form a part of the 'must-have' list of items for divers to take down with them.
Contrast is indeed the most important issue wrt the ability to read dive watches underwater. So given that the colour is lost at depth, maximum contrast is of course black & white. ;-)
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