Titanium Titan: The Omega Seamaster Ploprof 1200M
A high-tech version of Omega’s most famous sea monster.
It’s hard to write about a certain class of dive watches without dragging out the names of mythical and legendary sea beasts and over the years I and countless other watch writers have characterized big, high-spec dive watches as, among other things, Krakens, Leviathans, and Titans Of The Deep. The last was coined as far as I know by Carlos Perez on Timezone.com and imitated in one form or another ever since. “Titans” in this case is not just a metaphor for physical size; it also refers to titanium, which has been used for technical dive watches ever since Seiko introduced the 600M Pro Diver in 1975 (though this was not the first titanium wristwatch – it was preceded by the Citizen X-8, in 1970). The material is ideal in a lot of respects for dive watches – it’s essentially impervious to corrosion and for its weight, very strong.
The watch we have today for A Watch A Week, the 2015 version of the Omega Seamaster Ploprof 1200M, is one of the best examples of the titanium dive watch genre – and one with a lot of history behind it as well, going all the way back to the birth of modern, saturation technical diving.
The so-called Ploprof (the name is from the French “plongeur professionnels” or professional divers) started life as a prototype in 1969, and for a few years Omega had a partnership with the commercial diving company COMEX (or Compagnie Maritime d’Expertises). COMEX was a pioneer in deep commercial diving and in saturation diving, which in the early 1970s was still in its infancy. COMEX took a prototype diving during the JANUS II experiment, which was a test conducted in late 1970 in which three COMEX divers, working in the open sea, dove for 8 days to 250 meters, working twice a day in 3 hour shifts. (The depth record for saturation diving – 500 meters – was set by by COMEX in 1988, although the record for deepest working dive was set in 1990 by a Brazilian saturation diver working on an offshore oil platform; that depth was 328 meters). Omega has in its archives a photo of the prototype, engraved JANUS II TESTED 60 ATM, and used the achievement in an advertisement from 1970.
The watch we now call the Ploprof was not called by that name during its relatively brief production history, which ran from 1971, when the watch was first offered to the public, until about 1980. Known during its first incarnation simply as the Omega Seamaster 600, the watch was made in relatively small numbers (for obvious reasons) and although it made about as much sense for daily wear as a nuclear fast attack submarine at a classic yacht regatta, that didn’t stop Fiat boss Gianni Agnelli from wearing one on the outside of his shirt cuff.
The Seamaster 600M had a one piece case, with a crystal pressed in with a pressure of 120 kilograms, and it featured a screw down crown topped with a square locking nut which effectively enclosed the crown in a steel box when the crown was screwed down all the way. The signature feature of the original was a bright red plastic button on the right side of the case which was for unlocking the bezel – unless the button was held down the bezel wouldn’t be able to turn, and the system was designed to be used with one hand. The mechanical pressure on the gaskets was high enough to not only keep out water, but also helium atoms (nitrogen is replaced with helium in saturation diving breathing gas mixtures, to avoid nitrogen narcosis) so the first version of the watch was not equipped with a hydrogen escape valve, or HEV.
Omega did make a few prototypes – the book, Omega: A Journey Through Time says “fewer than ten” but the cost of the metal as well as the challenges of machining it, kept Omega from making the watch in titanium the first time out.
However, in 2009, Omega re-issued the Seamaster 600 – now officially called the Ploprof – but with some technical and design updates. The unlocking button was now in orange anodized aluminum and the bezel was synthetic sapphire, with luminous markers. The crown locking nut had been enlarged to incorporate the crown guards, and the case was now a traditional three piece construction, which would make servicing much easier (the original monobloc case required the watchmaker to extract the movement from the dial side after removing the bezel and crystal). The new version also had, somewhat controversially for enthusiasts, an HEV – probably a hedge against helium intrusion necessitated by the the addition of a screw-down caseback, which introduced another gasket to the case. The case was still massive and still stainless steel, and underneath the solid caseback was, for the first time in a Ploprof, a co-axial automatic caliber.
In 2015 Omega introduced yet another update, with a couple of additional technical improvements. The first was to the bezel, which was now in ceramic (much more practical than sapphire, although arguably less attractive in terms of visual depth). The second was to the caseback – the new for 2015 model had a display back allowing you to see the automatic co-axial caliber 8912, with a 60 hour power reserve, and significantly, the watch was now Master Chronometer certified by METAS, the Swiss Institute Of Metrology. But most importantly from a practicality standpoint, the bracelet and case were, finally, in titanium, making the 2015 Ploprof the most wearable Ploprof since 1971.
Make no mistake, this is still a huge watch, although after the last two decades, a 55mm x 45mm case doesn’t seem quite as big as it used to. However, the visuals, design, and functionality of the watch really set it apart from just about anything else out there. I remember reading an interview with Christopher Walken in which he said, “I’ve been very lucky in Hollywood in that, if you want a Christopher Walken type, you pretty much have to get Christopher Walken.” You could say the same thing about this watch – if you want a Ploprof-style dive watch, you pretty much have to get a Ploprof and it is about as far from the general, generic vocabulary of most dive watches as you could possibly want.
Of course, like any overspec’d dive watch the Seamaster Ploprof 600 raises all the usual questions, mostly having to do with practicality. The elaborate crown guard and bezel locking system, the sheer size, the presence of the HEV valve and above all, the 1200M depth rating are all overkill and then some, even for recreational SCUBA; unless you actually are a saturation diver there is no practical argument for this watch. 1200 meters is about five times the publicly reported test depth of a Virginia class SSBN (albeit that number is almost certainly a lowball number).
On the other hand, our collections are stuffed to the gills with watches for which there is no practical argument – so are our museums as far as that goes, and as Gianni Agnelli’s example reminds us, in the matter of watches as anything else, one doth not live by bread alone.