It is 15 years since Ball Watch Company first introduced its Engineer Hydrocarbon Original, a dive watch designed for tackling the most inhospitable underwater sites in the world.
It is also a strikingly stylish piece that will look as good in the board room as on the beach, and perfectly plays into today’s hottest trend for sporty steel watches on dry land, and reasonably priced at £2,580.
Ball Watch Company’s research and development arm Patrick’s Lab has balanced deep water reliability, legibility and functionality with a sporty and sophisticated modern design.
Its unidirectional bezel is graduated to help divers accurately measure their dive time and adjust their decompression stops in complete safety and it has special indents so it can be with bare hands or diving gloves.
The watch is water resistant to 200m (660 feet) and has micro tubes of H₃ gas inside the sapphire bezel and, for the first time, on its hands, which gives unrivalled luminosity in the dark. Ball Watch says they give off 100 times more light than Super LumiNova paint usually used in the watchmaking industry.
Inside its 40mm steel case is a COSC-certified BALL RR1102-CSL automatic movement powering hours, minutes, central seconds, day and date functions.
Its crown is equipped with a protection system consisting of a valve covering it to ensure that it is securely screwed-in and inaccessible when diving.