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The Abingdon Marina, a dive watch designed by a team of female divers who wanted a watch that hadn’t been ‘pinked and shrinked,’ has made its debut at the DEMA show.
Over the course of two years seven professional female divers and instructors designed the Marina, which is both fully functional and sound at depths of 200m and features a mother of pearl dial and lightweight titanium case.
The watch came to life when the founder of the Abingdon watch company, Abingdon Mullin, launched a kickstarter project to create it. After the campaign raised $66,000 from 258 backers, Abingdon and her team spent three years researching and designing the new dive watch. This involved visiting the DEMA show to collate feedback and enlisting the help of those seven female divers to ensure it was a watch women actually wanted to dive with. The consensus was that women didn’t want a watch which had just been – in Abingdon’s words – ‘pinked and shrinked.’
Abingdon (pictured) is a professional pilot with 3,000 flying hours under her belt and began her business The Abingdon Co. following a conversation between other female pilots and aeroplane mechanics. They raised the issue that there was no fully functional aviator’s watch on the market which was versatile and made for women. From that moment, she decided to create quality, realistically priced watches to meet the needs of female pilots, mechanics and adventurous women.
Now the company, which is based in Las Vegas in the USA, is branching into the dive market after customers requested a dive watch.
The spec
After getting our hands on the Marina at the DEMA show this week, it’s clear this model has been made with laser focused attention to detail which results in it looking and feeling like a luxury dive watch. But of course, we’ve only had a first look above water. Here’s an overview of its features.
World timer
Due to the fact that scuba divers often travel the world for underwater adventures, the Marina features a world timer. This is a bi-directional inner bezel with cities printed around it which enables the wearer to see different time zones across the world.
Band
The band is 20mm titanium for lightweight strength and has EZ squeeze pins on the back to allow you to easily remove or put on any 20mm strap. This watch is also compatible with a 20mm silicon wristband. For cold water dives it includes a band expander hidden in the buckle so it will fit around your wrist when you’re wearing a wetsuit.
It’s 100% automatic so includes no battery and has a 40 hour power reserve. The Marina is available in seven colours on Amazon or direct from the website at theabingdonco.com for $799.
