Look at the wrists around a typical boardroom table, and chances are the watches strapped to them are one of the following: Rolex Submariner, Omega Seamaster, or Panerai anything.

All three of them were born of the murky depths, built like miniature submarines to keep frogmen aware of their remaining oxygen supply, but nowadays – like the Range Rovers driven at the weekend by aforementioned board members – roaming Civvy Street as statement wear, their extraordinary capabilities are unchallenged, unfulfilled.

Or maybe not.

Quite apart from the fact a certain Commander Bond has been a keen advocate of those specific Rolex and Omega’s ever since Dr No, diving watches deserve their ubiquity for plenty of reasons: for a start, they look damn cool and they’re genuinely practical, whether you’re PADI Level 3 or still working on your doggy paddle. It may just be all the watch you need.

What Is A Diving Watch?

As with most fundamental developments in the modern wristwatch (self-winding rotor, date window, anti-magnetism) it was Rolex who patented the first practicable ‘waterproof’ wristwatch: the Oyster of 1926, with case front and back screwed down onto the case middle and the crown screwed down onto a cylindrical pillar protruding from the case – just like a submarine hatch. Save for the addition of tighter ‘O-ring’ rubber gaskets, it’s a system that’s barely changed since.

A diving watch is essentially that: a watch that has the ability to withstand the pressures of deep water. But as with anything in the world of luxury watches, it needn’t stop at the golden formula of water resistance, bezel ring and luminescence. You can opt for a diving watch with at least three other largely unnecessary features. Because, you know… because.

Rolex Submariner – the archetypal diving watch

Some divers have an internal timing bezel, sitting below the sapphire crystal flush with the dial. It’s more slender and classic-looking but requires its own screw-down crown to adjust and is therefore a right fiddle if you’re wearing diving gloves or simply have freezing-cold and wet fingers.