Dear Nicolas and everybody,
A lot has been discussed about the charm and originality of Polaris. But in case I am considering the watch only as a diving tool from the perspective of a diving professional, there is no doubt that the alarm is the single most useful complication ever added to a diving watch. Period.
Blanckpain and Rolex can fight who made the first and "original" dive watch intended for scuba diving. Another fight is if it was Jaeger or Vulcain who added first to a dive watch the most useful complication. A chronograph has its position as a complication in dive watches but let's face it: minutes must be measured mostly when making the decompression or safety stops. The bezel in a dive watch is doing the same trick even when playing with the bezel, the stops are normally rounded to the next full minute.
Basically a diving watch is a very simple tool: it just must be water proof to the depth we are diving according to ISO 6425 Regulations. If these regulations are met, I can see two single complications which are useful for recrational diving: the alarm and the power reserve indicator.
In todays higly competetive business environment, the manufafturers have started to compete with the level of water resistancy of the watches. That's plain stupidity in my opinion. Every year some hundreds of thousands of new scuba divers are licenced. Surely less than one percent will never go deeper than 100 meters. The modern ultra-water-resistant watches with their helium release valves are built for saturation diving in helium enriched environment. Let's face it: how many of us are planning to buy or rent a diving bell?
I have the modern Rolexes and Blancpains plus a couple of other diving watches which are meeting my tight criterias. However, these watches can never compere with Polaris. As a dive watch it is has the same originality and at least the same prestige as the before mentioned. But what a great idea it is, when your dive watch can give you a loud alarm when it is time to stop the dive and start a slow and safe ascent towards the surface!
Emotionally I love Polaris. At the same time I admire it as probably the finest and most useful diving wath ever created. Only the new Navy Seals Alarm can compete with Polaris but even it is a great diving watch (I have ordered one), it does not have the charisma of Polaris.
So actually having all three versions of Polaris is just logical...
Regards,
Kari