Watchlords

Technical Perspective What Saturation Diving Really Means (And What Watchmakers Do About It)

It's all about the helium, and not getting killed.


Saturation diving is one of the most talked-about subjects among dive watch enthusiasts and with good reason: many of the most interesting and technically advanced diver's watches are specifically designed to suit the needs of professional saturation divers. And yet, it's not often well understood by participants in the discussions what exactly saturation diving is, and how it differs from diving from, and returning to the surface (as scuba divers do).

Scuba involves suiting up topside, and descending to depth breathing some breathing gas mixture from compressed air tanks, and then returning to the surface. Deeper diving necessitates the use of an alternative to nitrogen and oxygen (which make up most of the air we breathe on the surface) as nitrogen can induce nitrogen narcosis at depths as shallow as 30 meters – nitrogen narcosis is often likened to being drunk. For this reason, in deeper diving helium and sometimes hydrogen are often used in combination with, or as a substitute for nitrogen; helium, unlike nitrogen, doesn't cause narcosis at depth.



https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/what- ... o-about-it