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The Top 5 Watches to Take on Vacation: The Omega Seamaster Diver 300M ‘Summer Blue’
A lot of very cool things came into being in 1948.
It was the year which saw the formation of both the World Health Organization and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Land Rover and the Honda Motor Company were established. Velcro was invented. Far more importantly than all that, 1948 saw the pressing of the very first vinyl LP record (ML 4001 – Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, performed by Nathan Milstein with the New York Philharmonic, as you doubtless already knew), and marked the first movie appearance of the Man of Steel, when Kirk Alyn starred in the Superman serial.
All of those things celebrated their 75th anniversary in 2023. As did one of the watchmaking industry’s heaviest of heavyweights; the Omega Seamaster.
A Little History
Before there were the Seamasters as we would automatically picture them today—stylishly handsome luxury dive watches—there were the 1948 originals.
The ref. CK 2518 (steel) and CK 2510 (gold) were a world away from the elegant tool watch vibe of those later examples and were, in fact, based on the military models Omega supplied during WWII. Known as W.W.W. watches, for ‘watch wristlet waterproof’, their design and construction focused primarily on sturdiness and legibility. The brand took both of those fundamentals as the starting blocks for their new collection.
However, although the debut Seamasters were certainly more dress watch than work companion, Omega did imbue them with class-leading water resistance all the same. They already had a track record with waterproofing, having brought out the Omega Marine in 1932, in some quarters considered the grandfather of the dive watch.
So when the Swiss Laboratory for Watch Research tested the Seamaster’s case and found it was safe to a depth of 60 meters, thanks to their pioneering use of rubber O-rings rather than lead, their reputation was confirmed. And that success spurred them on, a few years later, to launch something a bit more ‘professional’.
The Seamaster 300
1957 saw the arrival of three Omega watches which would go on to become legends in their own right. Well, two really, I guess.
The so-called Professional Collection was a trio of tool models aimed at three different branches of endeavor.
The Railmaster, the only one in the series to really struggle to connect with its intended audience, had enhanced antimagnetic abilities due to its use of a secondary internal case and was aimed at engineers, technicians and scientists.
The Speedmaster, initially designed to own the racetrack as the ultimate driver’s watch, was a massive triumph for the brand and ended up with far loftier achievements.
That left another icon, this one built to capitalize on the world’s burgeoning obsession; Scuba diving. The original Seamaster 300 went into direct battle with Rolex’s Submariner, released four years earlier. Because Rolex owned the patent on the screw-down crown, the component which arguably has the hardest job to waterproof a mechanical watch, Omega had to come up with an alternative innovation in order to seal their case. The result was the Naiad crown, a spring-loaded mechanism which relied on water pressure to seal it against the watch head—meaning it was more effective the deeper it went. The one obvious drawback to that was a certain weakness at shallower depths.
Nevertheless, the first reference of the Seamaster 300, the ref. CK 2913, proved waterproof to exactly (as the name suggests) 200 meters!
That discrepancy aside, the watch was another massive hit, only enhanced when it became the timepiece of choice for Jacques-Yves Cousteau and his team on their Precontinent II expedition, the French oceanographer’s attempt to develop a permanent underwater habitat.
An Ocean of Seamasters
As is Omega’s way, the Seamaster name was used generously over the years. In many cases, the watches the label was attached to had little relationship with the first of the breed.
So we got chronographs, yacht timers, mechanical alarms, and formal dress pieces. These days, even the misfiring Railmaster, one of the Professional trio in its own right, lives under the Seamaster umbrella.
But at its heart, the model has always been about diving. There have been some seriously capable versions released, with depth ratings all the way down to 1,200m in the case of the eccentric PloProf, or the recently unleashed Planet Ocean Ultra Deep, the most extreme example ever made for commercial use, rated down to a ridiculous 6,000m, or 20,000ft.
Those outliers have their supporters. Yet, without doubt the most universally admired Omega Seamaster range is one of its younger additions—the wildly successful Seamaster Diver 300M.
The Omega Seamaster Diver 300M ‘Summer Blue’
The ‘Omega vs Rolex’ war has been a long and fiercely fought one. And nowhere more so than in the battle of the ‘Seamaster vs Submariner’.
In 1995, Omega scored their biggest marketing bonanza since NASA ticked the Speedmaster box when Pierce Brosnan wore their new Seamaster Diver 300M in his maiden voyage as 007 in Goldeneye.
Launched two years prior in automatic and quartz versions, the watch was already something of a hit. But when Omega ousted Rolex as the timepiece supplier of the world’s greatest fictional spy, the SMP was immediately catapulted into the realms of superstardom.
Like all great designs, the model is shot through with enduring, signature elements; little flourishes which have followed it throughout its now 30-year history. There’s the twisted lyre lugs, the skeletonized hands, the scalloped bezel, the helium escape valve at the 10 o’clock position, the distinctive five-link bracelet, the 300m water resistance (for real this time).
For the most part, the wave pattern dial has been a constant as well, disappearing between 2012 and 2018 but making a welcome comeback in the latest, enlarged case models.
And that brings us up to our number 2 holiday watch choice; the Omega Seamaster Diver 300M ‘Summer Blue’.
This release was part of the 11-strong collection Omega introduced to celebrate the Seamaster’s 75thbirthday in 2023. Every Seamaster-titled collection in the line-up (including the Aqua Terra, Worldtimer, Seamaster 300, Planet Ocean, Ploprof, and Ultra Deep) received its own Summer Blue dial; each given a graduated, vignette-effect and the exact shade differing according to that watch’s talents. So, the 150m rated Aqua Terra got the lightest, while the insane Ultra Deep started dark blue in the middle and progressed to sheer black at the outer edges to simulate the extraordinary depths it calls home.
As for the SMP, it got a wonderfully vibrant hue which has been likened to that incredible tone you only ever really see in the waters around the Greek islands. With the laser etched wave pattern reinstated, it really does bring to mind the sunlit Aegean and is extraordinary to look at. Lighter and softer than the shade used on the traditional blue dialed watch, the theme is carried over to the lume used on the hour markers and handset as well as the enamel grand feu diving scale numerals on the dark blue ceramic bezel. So there is an all over uniformity that makes this an undeniable ‘summer’ watch.
Inside is the superb, METAS-certified, Co-Axial-equipped Caliber 8800. But, we will have to take Omega’s word for it. Unlike the standard production watches, the ‘Summer Blue’ does not have an exhibition case back to allow you to see everything at work or all that painstaking finishing. Instead, the solid back is laser engraved with a new version of the motif of Neptune astride two Hippocampi, one vintage and one modern, originally designed by René Bannwart in 1958.
Nevertheless, whether we can see it or not, the Caliber 8800 runs at 25,200vph, delivers a 55-hour reserve and keeps to METAS’s standards of -0/+5 seconds a day with up to 15,000 gauss of magnetic resistance.
There are two things about the ‘Summer Blue’ I find quite surprising. Firstly, it is not, technically, a limited edition. Of all the major brands, no one likes a limited edition more than Omega but this one, like the other 75th anniversary releases, is supposedly part of the main catalog. Don’t read too much into that, however. Chances are they will be removed without warning as do most of the brand’s birthday gifts.
The other surprise is the price. At $5,900 on a blue rubber strap or $6,300 on its steel bracelet, the ‘Summer Blue’ comes at a small premium over a regular SMP. But it is actually the least expensive out of any of the anniversary watches, even the simple Aqua Terra version.
Why that might be is anyone’s guess, but it only reinforces the point that the Omega Seamaster Diver 300M Summer Blue is one of the best choices for this year’s holiday companion.
Featured Photo: Mixed art by Oriol Mendivil for BKT Archive.
