Breitling Superocean watches

The Breitling Superocean is Breitling's dive watch. Breitling launched the first Superocean in 1957 as one of the first watches purpose-built for professional divers. Current models are water-resistant to between 300 and 1,000 metres depending on the version, with a unidirectional elapsed-time bezel or a bidirectional bezel that locks.

The current SuperOcean Automatic takes its design from the Slow Motion, the pared-down diver Breitling made when scuba diving took off in the 1960s: chunky luminous indexes, squared-off hands and a high-contrast dial ring, now with a ceramic bezel insert and bright dial colours. It comes at 36, 42, 44 and 46 mm, in steel, steel and red gold, or bronze, is rated to 300 m, and runs on the self-winding Breitling Caliber 17 with about 38 hours of power reserve. The bronze cases come with green or brown dials.

The earlier steel divers carry the plain Superocean name at 36, 42, 44 and 46 mm, or the Superocean II name, which also covers a 46 mm Blacksteel and a 48 mm titanium model. The Steelfish is a 44 mm Superocean. The Superocean Chronograph puts a chronograph in the dive case at 42 and 44 mm, and the Chronograph M2000 is a 44 mm chronograph 19.1 mm thick. Two watches sit apart from the divers: the 41 mm SuperOcean GMT, with a 24-hour bezel in place of the dive scale, and the 39 mm SuperOcean Deep Sea, ref. 81190.

Limited editions include the Superocean 44 Australia Edition in steel and red gold, limited to 50 pieces; the Superocean 44 Hainan and the Superocean 46 Blacksteel China, 100 pieces each; and a blue Superocean 42 Japan of 300.