Marc Jasinski.
Marc Jasinski, born in Belgium in 1933, is the inventor of the patented Aquastar Deepstar dive bezel (CH 436 140, filed 15 May 1964) and a long-time research and engineering collaborator of the workshop. Beyond the watch world, he shaped a chapter of scuba diving history, particularly in archaeological diving. From 1968 to the late seventies the BBC hired him as a cameraman for the archaeology programme Chronicle, working on the Spanish Armada venture in Ulster and on VOC wreck searches.
The letter below was written by Marc Jasinski to the Aquastar workshop in 2020, when mechanical production resumed under new direction after a thirty-six-year pause. We reproduce it here in full.
The letter.
Dear Sir,
The man behind the Aquastar is Frédéric Robert, a brave man with a vision and a passion.
It was a privilege to be working with him, and I will always remember him fondly, with respect and admiration.
He was a personification of the true entrepreneur. Every new project involved large financial commitments, deep and complex technical knowledge but also some commercial challenges.
I remember times of concern but none of discouragement. Frédéric never gave up. I am glad I could be useful to him and to Aquastar.
And now it is almost unbelievable that another brave man has resurrected this marvel.
Thank you.
With my kindest regards,
Marc
On meeting Frédéric Robert.
In a separate exchange, Marc Jasinski described the 1962 meeting that brought him into the orbit of the Geneva workshop:
The year of 1962 was definitely most interesting for me, because I became acquainted with the standard diving dress, during the CMAS World Congress on Underwater Activities, held in London in October that year. We were invited to visit the Siebe and Gorman works, as I remember then managed by Commander Shelford. Among many distinguished guests, I remember Commandant Philippe Tailliez, Frédéric Robert (founder and owner of Aquastar Watch factory in Geneva), and the famous Italian underwater movie producer and cameraman, the late Victor Aldo de Sanctis.
The bezel that bears his name.
Two years after that London meeting, Jasinski filed the patent that defined the modern Swiss dive watch. CH 436 140, dated 15 May 1964, describes a rotating bezel calibrated to the no-decompression tables of the period, the geometry that lets a diver read first-dive and repetitive-dive limits directly off the wrist, without a slide rule and without a table. The patent has long since lapsed into the public domain; the geometry has been carried forward from the archive blueprints into every modern Aquastar Deepstar.
