Celebrating champions of the deep.
Since our earliest days, Aquastar has been a proud supporter of pioneers and champions of the sea, from marine scientists and explorers to athletes pushing the limits of human endurance underwater. The watches on those wrists were never gifts and never paid placements. They were chosen, worn at depth, and brought back up working. The list below is a short history of the people who picked Aquastar to do that work.
Driven by the depths, inspired by legends.
Don Walsh. Lieutenant, U.S. Navy. With Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard, the first human to reach the bottom of the ocean: 10,916 meters in the bathyscaphe Trieste, Challenger Deep, 23 January 1960. Wore an Aquastar Model 60 on the descent, a fact he personally verified to the brand.
Jacques Mayol. The free-diving pioneer who proved that 100 meters on a single breath was possible. He rotated three Aquastars through the 1970s: the Deepstar chronograph, the Benthos 500, and the Regate yacht-timer. On 17 October 1976, off Elba, the Aquastar on his wrist was the Benthos 500.
Philippe Cousteau. Filmmaker, marine biologist, pilot. The only Cousteau ever filmed wearing a watch. Documented on the deck of the Calypso across three Cousteau Society films, 1968 to 1975, wearing the Aquastar Deepstar.
The Marine Nationale. For six years (1979 to 1984), every French Navy combat diver coming through Toulon was issued an Aquastar Benthos (third generation). About 3,200 watches over the procurement period.
Dr. Eugenie Clark. "The Shark Lady." Ichthyologist, founder of the Mote Marine Laboratory, professor at the University of Maryland. Aquastar was on her wrist for decades of research dives across the Red Sea, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.
Continuing a legacy of ocean excellence.
In 2023 Aquastar announced its partnership with Italian freediving champion Simona Auteri, joining the long line of athletes whose work depends on instruments that keep working at depth. The watches she trains and competes in are the same ones we ship from the Bienne workshop today, chosen, not gifted; numbered, tested, and serviceable for the life of her career.
About Aquastar.
The Aquastar legacy began in 1962 as the brainchild of an entrepreneurial diver and sailor named Frédéric Robert, who set out to build watches and specialised instruments exclusively for oceanic activities. The Geneva workshop he directed filed eleven patents between 1957 and 1977, including the water-resistant dual-gasket crown that made the 500-meter Benthos possible, the inside-the-case rotating bezel, and the no-decompression dive bezel that became the technical foundation of every Swiss dive watch built since.
After thirty-six years specialising in digital regatta timers (the Regatta 2000 line, 1984 to 2020), mechanical dive watch production resumed in 2020 under the direction of Rick Marei, known for his earlier work reviving DOXA Watches. The flagship is once again the Deepstar Chronograph, built today in Bienne, Switzerland, from the original 1962 archive drawings.
Latest from the Journal.
Long-form reading from the workshop: buying guides, watchmaking background, and short reviews of the pieces in the current collection.
- Benthos Heritage One Review. The 300-meter compression case in its modern re-issue, in the words of a first-owner review.
- Swiss Watch Movements: ETA, Sellita, La Joux-Perret. The three houses that quietly make the movements inside every Swiss dive watch.
- What Is a Cushion Case Watch? The 1957 Aquastar Model 60 defined the shape. A look at why the case still fits the wrist so well seventy years later.
- Do Dive Watches Hold Value Over Time? A frank look at the collector market and what drives resale prices for Swiss dive watches.
Where to go next.
Read the 1962 story: a complete brand history, from the first patent to the modern revival.
Aquastar: 60 years of Swiss dive watch heritage: the complete 1957-to-today chronology on a single page.
See all the people: full biographies of every figure mentioned above.
The Aquastar journal: dive-watch background, history, and buying guides.
The best Swiss dive-watch brands, compared: how Aquastar sits against the rest of the field.
See the collection: the watches we ship today.
