While pilots’ and astronauts’ watches tend to be designed for them rather than by these professionals, the same cannot be said for some historic dive watches: timepieces such as the Fifty Fathoms, the Radiomir, and the Spirotechnique were actually designed by professional divers. However, as diving became more popular, the design of these watches was entrusted to technical departments and later marketing departments, some of them far removed from genuine underwater concerns. In addition, many of the dive watches of the 2000s were laboratory tested in tanks without seeing so much as a drop of actual seawater before their arrival in the shops.
Profession: Deep-Sea Diver
In 1996, Frank Huyghe set out to change all that. A deep-sea diver, Huyghe had been diving professionally for years, had all the relevant qualifications, diplomas, as well as experience — and set up Ralf Tech on those foundations.
In 2008, he designed a timepiece that was to encapsulate all the values he held dear, going on to become the brand icon: the WRX, standing for World Record eXtreme. The name indicates Ralf Tech’s demanding expectations. The timepiece is water-resistant to 500 metres — much deeper than the 100 metres required to qualify as an ISO 6425 standard ‘divers’ watch’. What’s more, while it has indeed been tested to depths of 500 metres (at sea, rather than in a tank), the WRX boasts a comfortable safety margin of 30%, making it capable of withstanding depths as low as 650 metres. It’s even rumoured that the first WRX was tested to a depth of 800 metres in real-life conditions. Few brands can lay claim to such stringent requirements for their very first model.
Constant progress
The same exacting standards apply to all subsequent models. Between 2008 and the most recent iteration of the WRX in 2020, the timepiece has progressed from a depth rating of 500 metres to 1,000 metres, verified in actual conditions. And here too, the latest models have in fact been immersed to depths of almost 1,500 metres — and brought back up to the surface fully intact.
The WRX boasts a tried and tested case, along with a constantly improving power-house. The original 2008 version had a hybrid quartz and automatic movement: the best of both worlds, with an oscillating weight charging a battery that provides a 150- day power reserve.
The French Navy knew a good thing when it saw it, and took delivery of its first WRX three years after the model launch in 2011, establishing the business model for the piece as it did so: on the one hand, ‘catalogue’ pieces, made available in limited editions of 300, with a new version every year; on the other hand, production runs for operational forces, not available to the general public. Some of the pieces in question do occasionally surface, at dizzying prices — in the region of €10,000, around five times the list price of a catalogue WRX. The enthusiasm of the military and special forces for the watch extends well beyond the French Navy: today, some thirty units have chosen Ralf Tech, even though most of the deals in question are undisclosed.
In 2020, the WRX’s hybrid calibre was replaced by an electric one: a quartz movement with an integrated battery, rather than a standard watch battery. The latter lasts an average of three years, requiring the case to be opened regularly; Frank Huyghe advises against this for professional use. The WRX Electric battery works for 12 years non-stop. Once again, the rating leaves a comfortable margin. “When I sell a watch, I hope not to see it again for another 10 to 15 years”, says Frank Huyghe with a smile — taking the opposite approach to the all-too-common practice of over-priced after-sales service.
This year GMT Magazine and WorldTempus have embarked on the ambitious project of summarising the divers watch since 2000 in The Millennium Watch Book - Divers watch, a big, beautifully laid out coffee table book. This article is an extract. The Millennium Watch Book - Divers watch is available in both French and English here:
