The new Aquastar Model 60 is a throwback to 1960 when “US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh, wearing an original Model 60, and co-pilot Jacques Piccard, made a pioneering journey to the bottom of the Challenger Deep, aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste to a record-breaking depth of 10,916 meters (35,814 feet).” The watches they wore were standard “tool” dive watches that could take a licking and keep on ticking. The new Aquastar Model 60 pays homage to those explorers with a simple three hander running a La Joux Perret movement.
The Model 60, as you can see, is a fairly standard piece priced between $990.00 – $1,149.00. It comes on a NATO strap with an optional compass and looks like a rugged little beast aimed at a more nostalgic clientele.
From the release:
| Walsh’s Model 60 is recognized as Aquastar’s inaugural tool watch housing the brand’s first major precedent-setting innovation, as it introduced a new safety measure for dive watches of that era: a friction ring in the rotating bezel to prevent accidental rotations. Devised and originally patented by Aquastar, this simple, but critical feature would later become a standard feature echoed by legions of dive watches in the years that followed. |
You can pick the Aquastar up here if you need a little competence and austerity in your life.
