An early competitor for the recreational dive watch market, the French firm La Spirotechnique, with its long and distinguished history in underwater technology, introduced the Triton dive watch in 1963. In the early 1940s, the famed diver and explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau approached the firm Air Liquide, which specialized in compressed gas, to make underwater breathing devices. Cousteau and his partner, Émile Gagnan, wanted air regulators that could be attached to compressed air gas tanks to be used underwater. Due to the success of these early prototypes, Air Liquide formed the subsidiary firm, La Spirotechnique, in 1946 in order to mass-produce dive regulators. Today the firm is known as Aqua Lung/La Spirotechnique and remains one of the largest manufacturers of scuba diving equipment.
At first glance one notes the unlikely position of the winding and setting crown on the Triton watch. Jean René Parmentier (1921-1998) designed the case, which was manufactured by Dodane, giving the watch an instantly recognizable look with the crown placed at the 12 position. This provided a safety measure, ensuring the diver didn’t get the watch caught on something while underwater. The watch was one of the few in the era certified water-resistant to 200 meters - one of the reasons professional divers chose this tool watch for their work. Not only was it sold to civilians, it was also issued to French military personnel well into the 1970s. Accompanied with its hardly ever seen original box, it’s an unusual and rare find for the collector of vintage sports watches.