Extreme Rolex Sea-Dweller water resistance test

Have you ever wondered if those water “resistance” numbers on the dial of your wristwatch really can stack up in real life?

A french petroleum employee, Pol Palacios, working at an oil rig above the deep seawaters outside the coast of Angola had one of those “nothing to do” days and after some blunt staring at his newly purchased Sea-Dweller he decided to put it to the test, to see if his watch would withstand being descended to a depth of 4000 ft/1220 meters that is printed on the dial of the Sea-Dweller. But before possible doing something very stupid he called up a Rolex technician who said that the Sea-Dwellers are tested in 130 bars (1300 meters) in pressurised chambers before leaving the Rolex factory, obviously there are some words behind the Rolex marketing. After those reassuring words the sense of doing something really stupid disappeared and it was on its way with the test…………

1. First of all the 4000 $ Sea-Dweller must be securely mounted on the 50000 $ ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle). The ROV is sometimes unpredictable, its propellers create strong currents and the working arms are very powerful and at great depths sometimes lagging. One false move and a horrible disaster might occur. He did not feel like losing the 4000 $ Sea-Dweller in the middle of the ocean, so he doubled fixed the Sea-Dweller on a soft metal plate with plastic collars, lets just hope it stays in place?



2. Some final words to make it official, as it should be at “historical occasions”. In all his excitement he got the year wrong, the test was done in 2006 and not in 2005.


3. All set and ready for diving (supervisor having lunch) and colleagues shaking their heads and smirking having no confidence at all in the water resistance of the Sea-Dweller.


4. A view of the ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle) going down. Off course the Sea-Dweller will not just be dumped to the bottom of the Sea, but descended in a controlled manner. Controlled stops are planned at 500 and 1000 meters. What could possibly go wrong?


5. The “Mission commands centre” from where the ROV is controlled, off course we are in red alert mode, this is a very important “mission”.



6. Look at the monitor screen, the Sea-Dweller reached 1200 meters, which equals a pressure on the Sea-Dweller of 122 kilogram’s per square centimetre. Even though the Sea-Dweller states water resistance to 1220 meters, we do not know if that is in meters of fresh water or in meters of sea salt water? At this depth, the density difference between fresh and salt water creates a gap of over 4 bars/40 metres of fresh water. He just did not have the nerves to drop it another 20 metres.



8. The Sea-Dweller on its way up from the great depths, luminova is working nicely at 257 meters, but that is not really a merit, the watch have been sunbathing in the Angola sun all day long and at that depth its pitch dark and the ROV cameras a light sensitive to be able to see in dark water.


9. Well did the Sea-Dweller pass the test, and make it back to the surface intact? Exciting……


10. Noooooooo, it had busted and was full of salty sea water, what an idiot, literary flushing 4000 $ down the drain, how stupid can you be? I like to see that insurance claim, should belong in the category of unbelievable idiot acts of all time. I am only joking, hope you found it funny, the Sea-Dweller survived the descent and ascent completely intact.


11. Alive and well and ticking away, the Sea-Dweller kept good time and did the job, a true professional dive watch.


12. The Sea-Dweller can go back onto the owner's wrist. Cold, ice cold, basically the temperature at 1200 metres was 4 °C and the watch was cold as ice. An hour and a half of this down and up trip had cooled the watch all the way to the heart. It took several minutes to warm up the Sea-Dweller on the wrist, but after this “sweaty” trip maybe that was what the owner needed, some cooling down. And yes, the satirical comments and smirks from the colleagues had ceased into a silent admiration of the Sea-Dweller.


To be a little satirical it is no wonder petrol has become so expensive, when petroleum employees have so much spare time and are so well paid that they can fool around with 3000 $ watches and 50000 $ equipment on work hours.

As some a final critical words, we can never know if the Rolex Sea-Dweller really was 1200 meters under water, all we have seen was a monitor with the Sea-Dweller on it and a depth indication, not to hard to fake or change the order of photographs if you are a crazy Rolex enthusiast that wants to boost the brand, but on the other hand everything might be true. And it is always entertaining to see some madness in the other hands mundane world.

I also suspect there will be many comments on this blog post.

Photos and facts are courtesy of Pol Palacios french webpage.