www.worldwatchweb.com - Blancpain CEO Marc Hayek himself donned his scuba gear to descend to the bottom of the giant aquarium in the Dubai Mall for the launch of the new X Fathoms yesterday.

But it was record-breaking Italian freediver Gianluca Genoni who dived without any breathing apparatus, but wearing a Blancpain watchmaker’s lab coat, to present the new watch on a watchmaker’s desk that had been set up among the diverse marine life, including sharks and manta rays, in the aquarium.

The X Fathoms has been developed over a period of four years specifically for scuba divers and is the world’s first diver’s watch to feature a mechanical depth gauge that is accurate to within 30 centimetres down to a depth of 90 metres. The depth gauge works by the action of water pressure on a special liquid-metal case back that is less than one millimetre thick and has a tolerance to within 2 micrometres. This in turn acts on a rack-and-pinion mechanism that moves the hand on the display.

The depth is displayed on two separate scales on the dial, with a more finely graduated scale for 0-15 metres, including separate colour codes for the all important 3–6 metre depths on the way back up, when divers need to decompress before resurfacing. A separate hand also indicates maximum depth and can only be reset to zero by removing a special protector from the crown (located in the 8 o’clock position) that operates it – a very important safety feature for a diver.

A separate 5-minute countdown timer has also been incorporated into the watch to allow divers to time their decompression accurately. Located in the 10 o’clock position, this is the only counter on the dial to use an off-centre hand, with all other functions – hours, minutes, seconds and three separate hands for the depth gauge, being indicated centrally and read off against highly legible coloured scales.

The X Fathoms is currently in the final prototyping stage, with the final model due to be presented at BaselWorld 2012.