The dive and watch history

Skin Diver, the first American dive magazine, is on the market two years before the first European dive journal, the British Sub-Aqua Club magazine Triton, appears.

The Swiss dive pioneer Auguste Piccard pilots his bathyscaphe Trieste to a depth of 3,150 meters (about 9,500 feet).

Frédéric Dumas together with Jacques-Yves Cousteau publishes The Silent World. Dumas was the writer, and his books are now sought after classics. Dumas’s books include: The Silent World (1953); The Complete Manual of Free Diving (1957 with others); Deep-Water Archaeology (1962), and 30 Centuries Under the Sea (1972). The Silent World introduces the beginning of scuba diving and the construction of the aqualung (1949).

Together with Rollei, Hans Hass develops the Rolleimarin, the first commercial underwater camera housing.

U.S. Divers, a US-based company, starts to construct the aqualung regulator. The aqualung was invented in 1943 by Émile Gagnan (an engineer with Air Liquide) and Jacques-Yves Cousteau (a French naval officer).

Hans Hass produces the first full-length color film, which was shot underwater in Bonaire. He was also the first to use powerful artificial lighting on the reef.

The first Fifty Fathoms. The Fifty Fathoms chapter of Blancpain’s history is a tale of two groups who ultimately came together, united by the imperative of finding a robust reliable underwater timing instrument. Of course, there is Jean-Jacques Fiechter and, initially separately, the French military in the personages of Captain Robert “Bob” Maloubier and Enseigne de Vaisseau Claude Riffaud.

Dr. Harold Edgerton develops an underwater still camera with electronic flash.

Georges Houot and Pierre Willm (both French) pilot a bathyscaphe to 400 meters (13,287 feet) off Dakar’s coast.

Surf legend Bev Morgan writes the first dive instruction for scuba divers. Later he becomes famous for his Kirby Morgan dive helmets.

Barakuda launches Delphin, Germany’s first journal dedicated to the world under water.

Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau produces the movie The Silent World, bringing underwater mysteries to a large audience. In that film, Captain Cousteau wears Blancpain’s new Fifty Fathoms watch, developed for the French Navy

La Spirotechnique, a company belonging to Air Liquide, starts selling the Mistral—the most sought after regulator in the early days of scuba diving.

Gordon McLean reaches 65 meters (200 feet) using a scuba system. He sets the first world depth record for using scuba on air.

Sam Davison Jr. develops the Dial-A-Breath, a twin hose regulator with changeable breathing resistance. Later this year, Davison founds the Davison Cooperation, or Dacor.

The Japanese painter Akira Tateishi begins diving and under water photography, then constructs what probably is the first Japanese under water housing.

The Bathyscaphe which debuted in 1956 has a rich patrimony at Blancpain. Smaller in diameter than the Fifty Fathoms, its history is intertwined with it.

The British diver George Wooley, using a heliox-filled diving bell, reaches a new record depth of 184 meters (600 feet).

The Soviet Union develops the oxygen rebreather IDA-57.

Photographer and explorer Luis Marden discovers the remains of the HMS Bounty in the waters around Pitcairn Islands. Fifty-five years later Blancpain sponsors the National Geographic expedition led by Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Enric Sala to Pitcairn Islands to document its unspoiled nature and promote a marine sanctuary.

The Italian company Cressi develops a new oxygen rebreather, Aro Ar57b (some are still in use), and it is distributed to combat divers from many nations.

The Belgian inventor Jean de Wouters constructs the Calypso-Phot, the first 35-millimeter amphibious camera.

The first Sea Hunt series, filmed by Ivan Torsand starring Lloyd Bridges, premiers on US television.

Ennio Falco reports a new depth record for a dive on air to 130 meters (435 feet). As he has no means to record the dive, it is not considered a world record.

Jacques Piccard and marine biologist Andreas Rechnitzer set a new record depth of 5,642 meters (about 20,000 feet) in the Trieste bathyscaphe constructed by Jacques’s father.

CMAS, Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques (World Under water Federation) is established.

In Sengwarden, the German Navy launches its first modern combat divers program. In the 70s the Kampfschwimmer were equipped with the new Blancpain Fifty Fathoms.

Albert “Al” Tillman and Neal Hess establish NAUI, the National Association of Under water Instructors.

Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh reach the deepest point on earth, 10,916 meters (35,797 feet) in the Mariana Trench, in their bathyscaphe Trieste.

Hannes Keller and Kenneth MacLeish, wearing wet suits, dive to 220 meters (728 feet) in Lake Maggiore in a heliox-filled diving bell.

Dr. George F. Bond, chief physiologist of the U.S. Navy and pioneer of saturation diving, suggests that divers should work from and live in a submersible under water station to be used also as a decompression chamber once it is brought on board the supply vessel.

The Calypso-Phot reaches the market and becomes the most successful under water camera system ever produced.

Henri G. Delauze founds the French offshore company Comex in Marseilles.

Maurice Fenzy (French Navy) develops the first safety and buoyanc y compensator, the ABLJ (Adjustable Buoyanc y Life Jacket).

Luigi Ferraro founds Technisub with his friends Carlos Reinberg and Paolo Ruggero.

Enzo Maiorca, free diving in the Mediterranean, is the first human to reach 50 meters. In the following years he competes for the world championship in free diving with Jacques Mayol (France), Tetake Williams (Polynesia) and Robert Croft (USA).

Life magazine photographers Elgin Ciampi and Peter Stackpole use Plexiglas housings to make use of flashlights under water

The French bathyscaphe Archimède reaches 10,000 meters (31,308 feet) of depth in the Kuril Trench of Japan.

Hannes Keller and Peter Small are the first to dive to a depth of over 1,000 feet (exactly 1,020 feet) on December 3, 1962. Due to some mishaps the record dive (known as Keller Dive) ends in the death of Peter Small.

Ernest H. Brooks II is the first diver and under water photographer to document the existence of a fish in a subterranean river beneath Death Valley.

Weeks later, the French initiate Continental Shelf Station (Conshelf I) led by Jacques-Yves Cousteau. The Frenchmen Albert Falco and Claude Wesly live in their station—named Diogène—in a depth of about 10 meters (33 feet) for an entire week.

The American industrialist Edwin A. Link carries out his Man-in-the-Sea project based on the same principle. The B elgian Robert Sténuit descends to a depth of 61 meters (200 feet) in the French Riviera and stays at that depth for 24 hours.

Paul Dayton undertakes the first scientific dives in Antarctica for the University of Arizona’s program to study coastal growth.

Bernard Eaton takes over the British Sub-Aqua Club’s magazine Triton after Peter Small’s death (in the Keller Dive, see 1962) and turns it into the Diver, Britain’s most successful dive magazine. Eaton also organizes 10 international underwater conferences and film festivals, and launches the two largest dive shows in Britain (London and Birmingham) with his two sons. Eaton also founded Britain’s Marine Conservation Society, which promotes the protection of the marine environment throughout the world, and has Prince Charles as its president.

Conshelf II—a city on the seafloor—is constructed on the Sudanese coast fronting Port Sudan in a depth of 12 meters (36 feet). Five men spend a month living underwater. Two of these also stay one week at a second station in 30 meters (100 feet) depth. The city consists of a living area, a garage for a small submersible and a deep station tower. Today, only the garage is still visible on Port Sudan’s reef.

The bathyscaphe Trieste explores the deep wreck of the sunken nuclear powered submarine Thresher at a depth of 2,800 meters (8,400 feet).

Cousteau’s subaquatic village in the Red Sea (see Conshelf II, but the French call it Précontinent II) is where the full feature film World Without Sun is produced.

The Nikon company further develops the Calypso-Phot and releases the Nikonos, first in a long line of Nikonos 35-millimeter submersible cameras. The Nikonos system features watertight exchangeable lenses of 80, 35, 28, 20 and 15 millimeters.

Dick Bonin founds Scubapro.

Ivan Tors premiers the TV series Flipper.

Jack W. Lavanchy becomes the exclusive agent for La Spirotechnique in Switzerland.

Dimitri Rebikoff develops a corrected wide-angle lens for the Nikonos camera, which was equivalent to 28 millimeters in air and 37 millimeters underwater.

Tom Mount, founder of INTD, and Frank Martz dive to a depth of 110 meters (360 feet). The first world record is set.

Conshelf III. During this era of underwater habitat construction, the French project houses six men in over 100 meters of depth (328 feet) in the Mediterranean. They work an astonishing 22 days at depth.

In Sealab II, 28 men remain for 15 to 30 days at a depth of 65 meters (205 feet) off California.

Bev Morgan and Bob Kirby start the Kirby Morgan Corporation, and produce the first lightweight dive helmet.

The Tateishi Bronica underwater housing reaches the market.

Ron Taylor’s underwater footage of a great white shark—the first time the animal is filmed and recorded from outside of a cage—is honored at the Underwater Film Festival in Santa Monica.

John Cronin and Ralph Erickson establish PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) in the USA, which will become the world’s largest certifying agency.

Hal Watts and A. J. Muns dive on air to a depth of 120 meters (390 feet).

Edwin Link constructs the Deep Diver, the first modern (commercial) submersible with an operational lock out chamber for underwater personnel transfers at depth.

U.S. Navy diver Robert Croft breathhold dives to 80 meters (240 feet) off Bimini in the Bahamas. This would have been a world record if it had been recorded that year.

Walter Starke and John Kanwisher develop the first electronically controlled closed circuit rebreather (CCUBA).

U.S. Navy diver Robert Croft breathhold dives to 80 meters (240 feet) off Bimini in the Bahamas. This would have been a world record if it had been recorded that year.

With the first deadly accident in the Sealab program built up by Robert A. Barth, he is now forced to stop it. The most promising underwater habitat program ends in 1969.

Akira Tateishi publishes the first underwater nude picture.

Stan Waterman films the first professional film documentary about the great white shark, working together with two renowned Australians, Ron and Valerie Taylor.

Ron and Valerie Taylor finish the first movie on the great white shark: Blue Water, White Death.

Tektite I. Near the coast of the US Virgin Islands four divers stay two months submerged in a depth of 15 meters (50 feet), a new record in saturation diving.

Mike Humphrey and Mike Borrow develop the first modern atmospheric diving suit (ADS). The suit is tested by Jim Jarrett, whose name was given to this original suit and others that followed: the JIM suit.

Francis Falejczyk is the first human to breathe liquid. In the Netherlands’ Leiden University, Johannes Kylstra filled one of his lungs with an oxygen-enriched liquid. The test was positive, but too many questions remained.

In Hawaii, six men spend six days submerged in 160 meters (540 feet) in the NOAA-sponsored Aegir program.

In Tektite II, 11 successive five-person teams (one an all female team) spend two weeks to 20 days in the station, submerged at about 15 meters (50 feet) off the US Virgin Islands.

The US physiologist Peter Bennett develops trimix, which will help to minimize the tremble associated with using heliox in greater depths.

The innovation that marked the birth of the original Fifty Fathoms in 1953 and its evolution throughout the 60s when it was adopted by the U.S. Navy does not come to a halt in the third decade of Jean-Jacques Fiechter’s stewardship of Blancpain in the 70s.

The Optical Sciences Division of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory develops a new water-flooded camera.

The Soviet scientist Vladimir Dmitrievich Grishchenko is the first to dive at the exact geographic North Pole.

Cressi develops Equi-vest, a vest connected to the tank and supplied by air from the first stage. Equi-vest is considered the ancestor of the modern diving vest.

Eric Partington and Ken Smith Ainscough found the company Apeks in Blackburn, with the goal to develop and produce the best regulators in the world.

Scubapro launches the very first “stabilizing” jacket

Ernest H. Brooks II becomes president of the prestigious Brooks Institute of Photography, founded in 1945 by his father. Brooks Institute is recognized as having one of the most extensive under water photography programs in the world.

Scubapro launches the first analog decompression-measuring instrument, the Decometer

Lockheed (USA) develops the DSRV-1, a rescue vehicle capable of reaching 1,000 meters (3,000 feet), complete with elaborate photographic and television equipment.

Comex carries out a simulated dive to 650 meters (2,100 feet) in a dry compression chamber.

Paul Humann starts the first official floating dive operation on a specially constructed dive vessel in the Cayman Islands, thus opening the new concept of liveaboard diving to burgeoning dive tourism.

The Canadian doctor Joe MacInnis is the first western person to dive at the North Pole.

The first privately financed and organized saturation diving project is created to salvage the Andrea Doria. Chamber crew member Bob Hollis, later founder of Oceanic, the largest privately owned dive company in the US, explains the problems, difficulties and fatal hazards that occurred during this adventure.

Dr. Alexander Ivanoff (Sorbonne, France) develops a universal wide-angle correcting lens for up to 105 degrees. It is extensively used for offshore oil explorations.

Howard Rosenstein opens and operates the first diving center in Sinai, on the Red Sea.

Clive Cussler publishes his first Dirk Pitt novel, Mediterranean Caper. The Dirk Pitt stories are, by far, the most successful fiction series involving diving. As founder of the non-profit National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), Cussler’s life mirrored his literary works: He supervised the discovery and documentation of over 60 historically significant underwater wreck sites, and donated all artifacts and proceeds to museums and institutions of learning. Dr. Cussler is also a Fellow of The Explorers Club and the Royal Geographical Society of London.

Akira Tateishi designs the Tateishi Canon Marine 16-millimeter film camera.

Nikon reveals their 15-millimeter watercorrected wide-angle lens for Nikonos cameras.

With the Spondyle Club team, Daniel Mercier founds the World Festival of Underwater Images, with the goal of promoting the underwater world. The festival later changed its name to Antibes Festival of Underwater Film and Photography. Since 2010, it has been known as Marseille Festival of Underwater Film and Photography.

Al Giddings films the first motion picture that features extensive underwater work with real divers. Based on Peter Benchley’s novel The Deep, Geri Murphy edits the script and becomes the first underwater script editor in Hollywood. The Deep became a blockbuster and established diving as an adventurous sport.

Jacques Mayol sets a new world record in No Limit free diving to 100 meters (328 feet).

Oceaneering International sets the record for a JIM suit dive to 1,440 feet (350 meters).

The Comex performs the deepest saturation dive to 1,510 feet (working) and 1,644 feet (just for the record).

In a one bar atmospheric pressure JIM suit, Dr. Sylvia Earle makes her record dive to the sea floor near Oahu, setting a women’s depth record to 381 meters (1,250 feet).

The Liechtenstein engineer Jürgen Hermann invents the Hans Hass Deco-Brain (Europe). Together with the Orca Edge (USA), developed by Craig Barshinger and Karl Huggins, these two instruments are the first dive computers on the market. Because the Hans Hass Deco-Brain calculates the total time until decompression, it is considered the first decompression computer. The Orca Edge only measures no decompression time and displays the amount of nitrogen in the body—without calculating a time for a safe ascent!

Divers at Duke University Medical Center simulate depths of 2,132 feet, breathing a mix of helium, oxygen and nitrogen.

Nikonos IV-A with full automatic settings and TTL light metering reaches the market.

Jacques Mayol sets a new world record in free diving (constant weight) to 61 meters.

Fifty-six-year-old Jacques Mayol reaches 105 meters (330 feet) in the no limit free diving record books.

Switzerland’s Jack W. Lavanchy and Jürg Beeli form PADI-Europe, the European counterpart to the world’s largest diving association.

The Swiss professor Albert Bühlmann studied decompression at the University Hospital in Zurich. His research spanned over 30 years of decompression work and is published as a book, Dekompression—Dekompressionskrankheit in 1983. Bühlmann’s work has become the basis for many dive tables, computers and desktop decompression programs.

Nikonos V with improved body construction and manual settings reaches the market.

Mel Fisher discovers the Spanish galleons Nuestra Señora de Atocha and Santa Margarita. The wrecks contain silver, gold and jewelry valued at more than 450 million dollars. After this find Fisher calls himself the “world’s greatest treasure hunter.”

Seventy-four years after the Titanic sank, its wreck is located. An expedition to the wreck is made possible by using a manned deep-sea submersible named Alvin. The expedition into depths of 12,500 feet is headed by Robert Ballard.

Dr. Sylvia Earle sets the world solo dive depth record for women in a submersible, going to 3,000 feet (1,000 meters) in Deep Ocean Engineering’s Deep Rover, together with her then husband, Graham Hawkes.

Photographer David Doubilet publishes his first book, Light in the Sea.

The Ocean Spirit, the largest dive cruise ship of all time, leaves New Orleans’s harbor for its first pleasure cruise along the coastlines of Mexico, Belize and Honduras. Its captain and chief dive master is Bret Gilliam, a well-known dive entrepreneur and an avid diver noted for his deep and solo dives.

Bret Gilliam dives to 464 feet (about 150 meters) on air and sets the first successful single deep dive on air record. Most of his deep dive training took place on board the largest dive cruise ship in the world at the time, the Ocean Spirit, where Gilliam supervised dive operations.

A Comex diver reaches a record depth of 701 meters in a diving bell. A new world record!

The Nikonos RS 35-millimeter camera sets a new standard for single lens reflex cameras for underwater use. The camera is watertight and pressure proof up to 100 meters. The system features a macro lens (60 millimeters), a wide-angle lens (20 millimeters) and the first underwater zoom lens (17 to 35 millimeters).

Jim Bowden scuba dives breathing trimix with an open system to a depth of 825 feet (276 meters) soon followed by Sheck Exley who dives to a depth of 867 feet (284 meters).

Dan Manion pushes the record for deep diving on air to 153 meters, record bested later by Gilliam’s final 155-meter dive. In 2005, the Guinness Book of World Records stopped publishing deep dives on air due to too many fatal accidents. Gilliam is still the only diver who was not affected by nitrogen narcosis at this depth, proving his resistance by the mathematics test he performed in the deep.

The Cuban Francisco “Pipin” Ferreras reaches 130 meters (400 feet) on a breath hold dive in the No Limit category.

Gianluca Genoni, the Italian free diving champion, reaches 106 meters, a new world record in the Variable Weight category.

Gianluca Genoni, the Italian free diving champion, reaches 106 meters, a new world record in the Variable Weight category.

Jack W. Lavanchy launches Project AWARE in Europe, and it soon becomes one of Europe’s most active and influential marine environmental organizations.

In his 30-year career as an underwater archaeologist, Frenchman Franck Goddio discovered sunken cities, found historically important wrecks and brought countless artifacts to the surface.

Nuno Gomes sets a new world record breathing trimix on scuba to 283 meters (927 feet).

The Nikonos RS is taken off the market due to poor demand and internal restructuring at Nikon.

Having disappeared from the Blancpain lineup for two decades, the Fifty Fathoms returns in 1997. A bold step for Blancpain.

Stefano Makula is the first free diver to reach a depth of 50 meters (150 feet) without the aid of fins or weights.

Dr. Sylvia Earle leads the Sustainable Seas expedition, a five-year program to study the US national marine sanctuaries. Dr. Earle is sponsored by the National Geographic Society and becomes an Explorer-in-Residence.

Gianluca Genoni reaches 135 meters in the No Limit category—setting a new world record in the deepest of all free diving categories.

AquaLung is the overall brand for all leading brands in the group La Spirotechnique, U.S. Divers, Sea-Quest and Technisub.

Free diver Umberto Pelizzari reaches 150 meters (480 feet), a world record in the No Limit category. Only one week later, Pelizzari sets a new world record, 80 meters (250 feet) in the Constant Weight category.

Clive Cussler raises the historically important CSS Hunley. The CSS (Confederate States Ship) Hunley was the first submarine to sink another warship. The incident took place on February 17, 1864.

Howard Hall directs the first underwater IMAX® 3D film ever made. Into the Deep opens the Sony IMAX Theater on Broadway in New York City and plays widely in IMAX 3D theaters throughout the world. Into the Deep remains the most profitable IMAX® 3D film ever made.

Umberto Pelizzari reaches 131 meters (400 feet) free diving in the Variable Weight category.

John Bennett is the first diver reaching more than 1,000 feet (310 meters) during his record dive in the Philippines.

Maurine Shimlock and Burt Jones produce a fish and dive guide for an environmental NGO about Indonesia’s Raja Ampat, thus creating the first ecologically sustainable dive tourism area. This concept is followed by other countries seeking to replace destructive fishing practices with sustainable dive tourism.

Marc A. Hayek becomes CEO of Blancpain. Once again, Blancpain is led by a passionate diver.

Verna van Schaik sets the scuba diving record breathing trimix at 211 meters (650 feet) in South Africa.

The filmmaker James Cameron receives the Hans Hass Award for his lifetime work in underwater filming.

Johan Beukes sets the record for the longest dive (submerged in water) to 82.5 hours.

David Shaw sets the deepest rebreather dive in a cave to about 270 meters (850 feet). He dies only one year later trying to retrieve the body of a lost cave diver he discovered on his recordbreaking dive.

The Frenchman Daniel Mercier receives the Hans Hass Award for his achievement in the Antibes Photo and Film Festival.

Nuno Gomes still holds the record for the deepest cave dive to 282.6 meters (880 feet).

Nuno Gomes dives to 318 meters (1044 feet) in the Red Sea on June 10. But only weeks later, on July 5, Pascal Bernabé sets a new record of 330 meters (1,083 feet) in the Mediterranean. Bernabé descends to the depth in only 10 minutes, but needs eight hours and 49 minutes to resurface.

The AquaLung group CE certifies the first twin hose regulator to commemorate the 50 years of the Mistral AquaLung.

The US filmmaker Stanton “Stan” Waterman receives the Hans Hass Award

Chief Navy diver Daniel P. Jackson reaches 609 meters (2,000 feet) in a ADS JIM suit.

The Belgian free diver Fred Buyle together with his Canadian friend and record-holding free diver William Winram are the first divers to help scientists tag sharks by free diving with these animals.

Carlos Coste sets a new record in the Variable Weight category to 140 meters (450 feet).

French diver, underwater photographer and marine scientist Laurent Ballesta dives to 192 meters in the Mediterranean Sea to take the deepest picture ever taken by a diver.

The father of modern dive helmets, Bev Morgan, receives the Hans Hass Award.

Herbert Nitsch sets the record for the deepest free dive to 214 meters (680 feet) in the No Limit category.

Blancpain introduces three models in what is now a Fifty Fathoms collection. The new Automatique version offers an entirely new movement with a five day power reserve. Joining it are a flyback chronograph and tourbillon.

The Edition Fifty Fathoms’ first annual book is presented at the Basel Watch Exhibition. By the end of the series (2020) the Edition will feature the 50 best underwater photographers of the last twelve years. It started in 2008 with: Ernest H. Brooks II (USA), Maurine Shimlock and Burt Jones (USA), Udo Kefrig (Germany) and Helmut Horn (Germany). The editor of the Blancpain book series is Dietmar W. Fuchs, an editor in chief since 1988 for the two largest dive magazines in Switzerland and Germany.

Dr. Enric Sala leads the National Geographic Pristine Seas expedition to the most remote reefs of the world.

The Edition Fifty Fathoms 2009 is presented in Cannes. The photographers are: Norbert Probst (Germany), Masa Ushioda (Japan), Amos Nachoum (Israel), Doug Perrine (USA).

The French free diver Stéphane Mifsud sets a new time record in breath hold diving of 11 minutes, 33 seconds.

The Edition Fifty Fathoms 2010 is presented in Geneva. The photographers are: Chris Newbert (USA), Reinhard Dirscherl (Germany), Stephen Frink (USA) and Kurt Amsler (Switzerland).

Gianluca Genoni sets the record for breath holding—18 minutes and three seconds—and prepares by breathing pure oxygen.

Dr. Sylvia Earle receives the Hans Hass Award.

William Trubridge (NZ) dives to 101 meters (328 feet) without any aids (sledge, fins, etc.). The dive at Long Island, Bahamas, lasts four minutes and ten seconds and was Trubridge’s 13th record breaking dive.

Beside the X Fathoms presentation, the 2011 Edition Fifty Fathoms is launched. The photographers are: Aaron Wong (Singapore), Fred Buyle (Belgium), William Winram (Canada) and Ethan Daniels (USA).

The remarkable X Fathoms is presented in the Dubai Aquarium where Marc A. Hayek conducts an underwater interview that is broadcasted worldwide. The X Fathoms is the first dive watch with an integrated mechanical depth gauge that records and depicts great depth down to 90 meters as well as shallow depth for decompression.

James Cameron sets the new record for a solo dive, diving into the Challenger Deep to a record 10,898 meters.

Gianluca Genoni sets the world record in free diving on a scooter to 160 meters.

Dr. Sylvia Earle leads an expedition to NOAA’s Aquarius Underwater Laboratory, located off Key Largo, Florida. The expedition, Celebrating 50 Years of Living Beneath the Sea, commemorates the 50th anniversary of Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s Conshelf I project, and investigates coral reefs and ocean health.

The Edition Fifty Fathoms 2012 is presented in London. The photographers are: Imran Ahmad (Singapore), Laurent Ballesta (France), Martin Strmiska (Slovakia), Keri Wilk (Canada).

The German Tom Sietas sets the world record in breath holding to 22 minutes and 22 seconds in a competition with Brazilian Ricardo Bahia held in a tank in China.

Blancpain sponsors the Hans Hass Fifty Fathoms Award to acknowledge the unparalleled accomplishments of Professor Hans Hass in the field of diving science and art, including still photography and films. Hans Hass is the undisputed “first” in almost everything related to sport and scientific diving. In the young French scientist and photographer Laurent Ballesta, the Hans Hass committee finds the perfect candidate whose career follows in the path of the legendary Hans Hass.

There are many chapters to be written of Marc A. Hayek’s stewardship of Blancpain which began in 2002, but none more important, more vibrant, more filled with passion than his resurrection, nurturing and revitalization of Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms patrimony.

Laurent Ballesta begins his Coelacanth expedition with the help of Blancpain. He dives down to over 100 meters to study the ancient fish and produces the very first documentary about its habitat.

Along with his revitalization of the Fifty Fathoms, Marc A. Hayek dedicates Blancpain to the cause of ocean preservation. Seated with him are Laurent Ballesta of the Gombessa project and Dr. Enric Sala of the National Geographic Society.

Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe. As the 2003 anniversary model and the 2007 models re-energized the legend of the Fifty Fathoms, it was completely natural and a further salute to its history that Blancpain would turn its attention to the companion of the Fifty, the Bathyscaphe.