The Deepsea Challenge reaffirms Rolex’s legitimacy as a pioneering brand in the world of watches for deep-sea diving and its expertise in waterproofness and resistance to underwater pressure.

This 50 mm watch is an adaptation of the Rolex Deepsea Challenge – the experimental watch that accompanied filmmaker and explorer James Cameron into the Mariana Trench in 2012, attached to the exterior of his submersible.

Crafted from RLX titanium, the Deepsea Challenge is available with an intense black dial and features a unidirectional rotatable bezel with graduated Cerachrom insert in black ceramic.

Rolex’s patented Ringlock system equips the brand’s divers’ watches designed for extreme depths, the Rolex Deepsea and the Deepsea Challenge. An extension of the research dedicated to the waterproofness of the Oyster, this system is a reinforced case architecture comprising a thick, slightly domed sapphire crystal, a high-performance compression ring, and a case back made from RLX titanium.

The compression ring is crafted from a nitrogen-alloyed steel on the Rolex Deepsea in Oystersteel and the Deepsea Challenge, while it is manufactured in a blue high-tech ceramic – a first for this component – on the 18 ct yellow gold version of the Rolex Deepsea.

The Oyster case of both models is also equipped with the helium escape valve, patented in 1967. This safety valve works to protect Rolex divers’ watches created for great depths by allowing excess pressure built up inside the watch case to escape during a diver’s decompression phase in a hyperbaric chamber – a process inherent to saturation diving – without compromising the waterproofness of the watch.

In deep-sea diving, absolute reliability and security are of the essence. The waterproofness of every Rolex Deepsea and Deepsea Challenge watch is tested with a safety margin of 25 per cent, in accordance with the standard in effect for divers’ watches.

The Rolex Deepsea, guaranteed waterproof to a depth of 3,900 metres, is thus effectively subjected to the pressure exerted at 4,875 metres deep, while the Deepsea Challenge, waterproof to 11,000 metres, is subjected to the pressure exerted at 13,750 metres deep.

For these stringent tests, the brand developed a special hyperbaric tank for the Rolex Deepsea and an ultra-high-pressure (UHP) tank for the Deepsea Challenge in conjunction with Comex (Compagnie Maritime d’Expertises), the world-renowned French company specializing in underwater engineering and hyperbaric technologies. 

Like all Rolex timepieces, watches in the Deepsea range are covered by the Superlative Chronometer certification. This designation testifies that every watch leaving the brand’s workshops has successfully undergone a series of tests conducted by Rolex in its own laboratories, according to its own criteria. The Superlative Chronometer status is symbolized by a green seal and is coupled with an international five-year guarantee.