Commercially issued in 1970, Omega Seameaster 600 ‘Professional Plongeur’ aka Ploprof was Omega’s attempt to produce a diving watch to satisfy the needs of aquanauts of the French COMEX diving squad. The story goes that Rolex were working on a watch capable of saturation levels of water resistance and ultimately won the race against Omega with their Sea Dweller Ref.1665. How did they win? – rumour has it that Rolex’s stronger marketing team helped convince COMEX that the Sea Dweller was the watch they needed for the job. As it turned out, the Sea Dweller preceded the Ploprof by three year with their work with the U.S. Navy Sealab team. Much has been said about the Ref. 1665 but for the definitive story of the origins of the Sea Dweller, there’s probably no better resource than Perezscope’s rigorously researched history here.
The key difference between the Sea Dweller and the Ploprof was the infamous Helium Gas Escape valve which Omega did not need to build due to its monobloc construction.
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Split Seconds 