Maybe most of us don’t actually wear a dive watch to dive into the sea. However, at least when we own a dive watch, we should be able to know each function of its parts.
Some of the distinguishing features of dive watches have no real use in daily life. While the bezel of a dive watch is quite useful in daily life for keeping time, from cooking, doing laundry, to your child’s nap time. If you quite often use the bezel index, you may notice that the bezel of your watch looks slightly different from the numbers 0 – 15.
What’s the function of those hash marks?
While the bezel pip (zero marker) and the minute hand can approximate the overall bottom time of a dive, you need the finer markings to measure anything in single-minute increments. When you dive into the sea, the more accurate minute markings on a bezel come in handy for timing shorter-duration operations, like decompression stops.
The increased pressure when diving causes you to inhale more nitrogen than usual. This nitrogen is stored in the blood, and if you ascend too quickly, it doesn’t have enough time to dissipate properly. It can then form bubbles within your blood and tissues, causing decompression sickness.
Decompression stops require fairly precise timing, often down to the second, at the various depths a diver is at, so guessing is not wise. Many dive watches include these minute markings for the first 15 – 20 minutes of the bezel circumference, but more serious ‘mil-spec’ dive watches (Tudor Pelagos FXD, for example) provide the full 60 minute markings.
There’s another kind of hash marks on bezel
While most dive watches have hash marks at 15, there are also two other types. The first one is the 60-minute, or full, marker line that you can see on the Tudor Pelagos FXD watch. Aesthetically, this type is very beautiful to look at as it fills the bezel perfectly. It has no specific function other than to read in each minute.
The other one is a bezel with no marker lines at all, as you can see on the Tudor Black Bay Pro. To read the time, it completely relies on the available indexes and the triangular markers at the 12 o’clock position. Design-wise, a watch with a bezel with no marker lines will look more minimalistic.
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So, of those three types of bezel, which one suits you best in terms of function and design? Find all those types of bezels in our watch collection online, or visit The Time Place boutique for more information.
