Key takeaways
• Blancpain has introduced the new Fifty Fathoms Tech diver’s watch, featuring a world-first patented 3-hour bezel and a dedicated 3-hour hand designed for extended technical diving.
• The watch is engineered for high performance with a 47 mm Grade 23 titanium case, 300-meter water resistance, a helium escape valve, an absolute black dial, and a 120-hour power reserve.
• For over two decades, the Blancpain Ocean Commitment has driven critical marine research and preservation partnerships, including projects with PADI, Sulubaaï, Tamataroa, and Oceana.
June 8 is the day the world turns its attention to the Ocean. For Blancpain, every day has been Ocean Day for more than two decades.
The Fifty Fathoms was born in 1953 as the first true diver’s tool watch. Today, the same spirit drives the new Fifty Fathoms Tech and the Blancpain Ocean Commitment, a program that has become one of the most consequential in marine exploration and preservation.
Key Takeaways — Fifty Fathoms Tech
- World-first 3-hour bezel and dedicated 3-hour hand: pioneering feature first introduced in 2023 on the Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa.
- Date function added for everyday versatility.
- New interchangeable strap system: central lugs, tool-free changes; orange, white, or black rubber.
- Absolute black dial absorbing up to 97% of light.
- 47 mm Grade 23 titanium case; 300-metre water resistance; helium escape valve.
- Blancpain Manufacture calibre 13P5A; 120-hour power reserve.
- Supplied in Blancpain’s classic Peli™ case.
Fifty Fathoms Tech — The Tool Has Evolved
Blancpain invented the secured rotating bezel. It is not a decorative element; it is a genuine horological complication with a life-saving function: allowing a diver to measure elapsed time underwater, and to know exactly when to surface. For seventy years, that bezel has turned in 60-minute increments. In 2023, Blancpain made it evolve by introducing a patented three-hour bezel on the Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa 70th Anniversary Act 2, developed by Marc A. Hayek and Laurent Ballesta.
The 3-hour bezel, a world first, was born from a specific need. Modern technical diving, particularly with closed-circuit rebreathers (CCR), involves extended dives at depth: two, three hours, or more. A 60-minute bezel is simply insufficient. By rethinking the movement, Blancpain adapted the GMT complication — traditionally a 24-hour mechanism — to rotate in three hours instead. The result is a dedicated 3-hour hand and scale that gives technical divers, underwater photographers, and scientists the precision they need, across the full duration of a dive.
The Ocean Taught Us Patience
The new Fifty Fathoms Tech gives divers the one thing marine life demands before it reveals itself: time. It is a complication that matters in the field, and the reason goes deeper than simple technical necessity. Marine life is acutely sensitive to the presence of divers. Fish, mollusks, crustaceans, the smallest organisms on a reef: they register the intrusion and alter their behavior accordingly. The shorter the dive, the more the observation is disrupted. Extended bottom time changes everything. Given enough time at depth, marine life acclimatizes to the diver’s presence, relaxes, and resumes its natural behavior: feeding, moving, interacting as if no one were watching.
Unlike open-circuit scuba systems, rebreathers emit little to no bubbles during long dives, eliminating one of the most intrusive signals underwater. The diver becomes quieter, less conspicuous, and better able to blend into the environment. Combined with extended bottom time, this allows for a level of proximity and observation that would otherwise be impossible.
That is the moment the underwater photographer waits for. That is when science happens.
The 3-hour bezel is not merely a technical complication; it is the instrument that enables patient, non-invasive observation. The new Fifty Fathoms Tech is, above all, the diver’s watch best suited to documenting life as it actually lives.
The new Fifty Fathoms Tech builds on that 2023 breakthrough, now expanded with a date function for everyday legibility and a redesigned, tool-free, interchangeable strap system built around central lugs, offered in orange rubber, with black or white rubber available separately. The absolute black dial absorbs up to 97% of ambient light, while luminescence is deliberately differentiated: Super-LumiNova® with blue emission for all diving indications, and Super-LumiNova® with green emission for the regular time. In any light, at any depth, there is no confusion. The 47 mm Grade 23 titanium case offers 300-meter water resistance and a helium escape valve. Inside, the Manufacture caliber 13P5A — based on the proven Caliber 1315 — delivers a 120-hour power reserve. The watch is supplied in Blancpain’s Peli™ case: water-resistant, shock-resistant, reusable.
BLANCPAIN OCEAN COMMITMENT — MORE THAN 20 YEARS OF SCIENCE IN THE FIELD When Marc A. Hayek joined Blancpain, one of his first initiatives was to bring together leading underwater photographers for a diving event in Thailand, held as part of the 50th anniversary of the Fifty Fathoms in 2003, and to initiate with PADI a citizen science program for the identification of whale sharks, inviting divers to submit their photographs to a shared database. That instinct — to use the diving community as a scientific resource, and to support projects with genuine potential — has defined the Blancpain Ocean Commitment ever since. The BOC name arrived in 2014, but the commitment predates it by more than a decade. What has never changed is the approach: Blancpain does not simply provide funding. It identifies promising projects, activates its networks, and builds long-term partnerships designed to generate real scientific and ecological outcomes.
Four milestones from 2025–2026 illustrate what that commitment looks like in practice.
1 — PADI: The Largest Partnership In The History Of The Organization
What began in 2003 as a citizen science pilot — divers submitting whale shark photographs to a shared identification database — has grown into the most significant partnership PADI has ever formed with a private organization. Blancpain has just strengthened its long-standing partnership with PADI by launching the Global Shark & Ray Census, a citizen-science initiative mobilizing divers to monitor vulnerable shark and ray species worldwide. As a founding partner of the Census and strategic partner of the PADI Blueprint for Ocean Action, Blancpain also supports a new Shark & Ray Conservation Specialty Course, turning diver education into concrete conservation action and reinforcing Adopt the Blue, PADI’s flagship marine protected area program initiated by Blancpain.
2 — Sulubaaï: A Research Center At The Heart Of A Network Of 8 Marine Protected Areas
In 2025, Blancpain inaugurated the Blancpain × Sulubaaï Marine Research Center in Shark Fin Bay, in the Philippines, a facility strategically positioned near the marine protected areas established with Blancpain’s support over the past decade. Since its opening, the network of marine protected areas anchored by this program has expanded from five to eight. The center is far more than a scientific facility. It serves as a hub for youth education, training local fishing communities in sustainable practices, and involving local decision-makers in the management of their own marine ecosystems. The model Blancpain has helped build in the Philippines — one that generates economic alternatives through sustainable fishing and marine tourism, and strengthens local communities’ genuine stake in conservation — is increasingly recognized as a blueprint for how private sector investment in ocean protection can work at scale.
3 — Tamataroa: 6 Years Of Expeditions, One PhD, One Endangered Species
The Tamataroa project, a joint initiative by the Mokarran Protection Society and Gombessa Expeditions, with Marc A. Hayek as its driving force from the outset, has now reached its final chapter. What began as an effort led by the Mokarran Protection Society, leading and involving the local communities, to advance knowledge and protection of the great hammerhead shark later evolved into the Tamataroa project with the involvement of Laurent Ballesta and his Gombessa team, becoming a landmark long-term scientific program: six years of expeditions, a body of data on the great hammerhead shark unprecedented in its depth and duration, and the doctoral research of Tatiana Boube, whose PhD — initiated and funded by Blancpain — is now generating the scientific evidence required to drive future management and protection measures for this critically endangered species. A new film documents this final phase of the work. It is a record of what long-term commitment to a single scientific question can produce — and a reminder that the most important ocean conservation work rarely makes headlines until it is too late to ignore.
4 — Oceana: When Science Drives Protection
In 2025, Blancpain and Oceana completed a three-year scientific campaign in California’s Channel Islands, combining scientific diving surveys and environmental DNA sampling across 30 sites. The project documented more than 13,000 species and generated critical data on one of North America’s richest marine ecosystems. Joined by Female Fifty Fathoms Award winner Renee Capozzola and Oceana Ambassador Cobie Smulders, the initiative demonstrates how science can translate into conservation action. The data collected helped support key policy measures, including the phase-out of harmful set gillnets along the California coast.
Key Takeaways — Blancpain Ocean Commitment
- More than 20 years of ocean exploration and preservation — predating the BOC name (2014) by over a decade.
- PADI: Blancpain’s most significant institutional partnership — expanded with the launch of the Global Shark & Ray Census, building on established conservation initiatives such as Adopt the Blue, PADI’s flagship marine protected area program initiated by Blancpain.
- Sulubaaï: inauguration of the Blancpain × Sulubaaï Marine Research Center in Shark Fin Bay in 2025; network expanded from 5 to 8 marine protected areas in the Philippines.
- Tamataroa: initiated by the Mokarran Protection Society and developed with Gombessa Expeditions, with the early involvement of Marc A. Hayek; six years of expeditions and support for Tatiana Boube’s PhD.
Technical Specifications
Fifty Fathoms Tech – Ref. 5019A 12B30 94A
Movement: Blancpain Manufacture caliber 13P5A
Functions: Hours, minutes, seconds, date, 3-hour dive-time hand, unidirectional 3-hour scale bezel, helium escape valve
Winding: Automatic
Power Reserve: 120 hours (5 days)
Dimensions: 33.40 × 5.65 mm
Frequency: 4 Hz (28,800 vph)
Jewels: 35
Components: 226
Case: Grade 23 titanium
Crystal / Case back: Sapphire crystal
Water Resistance: 30 bar (300 m)
Diameter: 47.00 mm
Thickness: 14.81 mm
Lugs: Central lugs with an interchangeable strap system
Dial: Absolute black
Hands: Super-LumiNova® with blue emission for diving indications and Super-LumiNova® with green emission for the time
Indexes: Luminescent block-shaped appliques with green emission
Strap: Orange rubber with pin buckle (supplied); black and white available separately
Edition: Not limited
Price: CHF 20,500
