Raise your hand if you ever plan to dive 12,800 ft. down someday. Okay, now put on the new Rolex Deepsea on your wrist and try raising your hand again. Do it 10 more times. Is your arm tired? This new "dive watch" weighs a reported nearly 320 grams – nearly three-quarters of a pound. To put it into context, Vacheron announced the most complicated watch in the world yesterday and it weighs less than three times this watch. Even the watch I believe is the heaviest wristwatch ever made – the AP Royal Oak Offshore ref. 25721 – isn't far off at 429 grams. But in a "hold my beer" moment for Rolex, this watch goes 39 times deeper than the Offshore. That means it might be the most unnecessary "tool" watch Rolex (or anyone) has ever released, and yet, sometimes, things go far past the part of making sense that they absolutely rock.

While Ben Clymer (below) can pull it off as a yacht rock look with a double-breasted suit and white dress shirt, we all can't be so lucky. This watch isn't just heavy, it's BIG – 44mm x 17.7mm of nearly solid gold swagger (swagger I definitely don't have). Those are the same dimensions as the Oystersteel-cased Deepsea ref. 136660 that was released in 2022. But this watch is an entirely new ballgame in so many ways.

It has a 5.5mm crystal and a helium escape value, and even with all that, the new Deepsea now has a blue lacquer dial to match the blue Cerachrom bezel unidirectional dive bezel with yellow gold numerals and accents. Oh, and there's no "Sea-Dweller" on this watch. Instead, the dial boldly proclaims "Deepsea" in gold text, which is where a watch this heavy would drag you if you're not careful. To borrow one of my favorite Ben-isms (something he says whenever we've seen or heard about a watch that's so crazy, ridiculous, or unexpected that it's hard to understand), "What are we even talking about anymore?"

That's because, among a few other (and probably more important) changes, the Deepsea now stands on its own giant feet as a separate collection from the Sea-Dweller. This doesn't just dwell in the sea, it commands the sea while commandeering your wrist space at the same time. You'll no longer see "Sea-Dweller" on the Oystersteel dials either, which technically means that Rolex kind of introduced two new steel watches without telling us, or at least new generations of dials on the "D-Blue" and black-dialed Deepseas. It's a realization I'm coming to while writing this story, so I'm glad you can be along for the ride of discovery.

If you look closely around the edge of the dial, you'll see that yes, the watch has a helium escape value (as advertised in bold letters) and you might sneak a peak at it in a photo further down, but frankly, I was so overwhelmed by the wildness of this watch that I barely paid it any attention. There's also a new compression ring made of blue ceramic, which works with the HEV and ensures water-tightness to those insane depths listed on the dial.

The other thing I forgot to photograph in the moment was that the Oyster clasp includes Glidelock, which gives you 10 notches, each adding 2mm of length to the bracelet (20mm total) so you can fit the watch over a wetsuit. I'll put a picture below (after a photo to remind you how thick and how much gold we're talking about) because it's kind of amazing that Rolex went all-in on treating this watch like it was just your average Deepsea that folks will be taking to do things like... I don't know, saturation diving to work on oil rigs? If that's your gig and this is going to be your new watch, I'd love to hear from you.

If you're dying to be the '80s yacht rock saturation diver, you might have to put up with the fact that the caseback isn't solid gold. Instead, it still remains RLX Titanium, which I get the impression isn't a weight savings measure – that ship has sailed faster than and in the same way as I blow my "diet" plans at Thanksgiving time – but rather another measure to maintain strength under pressure.

The point, to me, is a bit of an afterthought, but if you're the kind of person who can (and wants to) pull this watch off, you're going to have to part with CHF 49,900. But man, you're going to have a blast while wearing it.

As we passed this watch around the table, it was absolutely silly. My coworkers were in fits of laughter at the absurdity of the heft of this chonky, gold tool watch. People would put it on the wrist, wear it, pass it around, and ask for it back just to experience it one more time. Often, with any tool that's become outdated in the face of technology, having fun is the entire point. Just because you can't doesn't mean you should, but it also doesn't mean you shouldn't. Thank god someone at Rolex shares that mentality. The same reason Rolex made it is probably similar to the reason most potential buyers will pick one up: because they can. Sure, that's often an obnoxious reason, but in this case, I dig it.

So, who is this watch for? If "Her Deepness" Sylvia Earle – one of the most legendary marine biologists of all time – can wear a gold Datejust on her "casual" diving trips, this watch could be for anyone. While people aren't likely to be diving to 12,800 ft. (which just so happens to be the average depth of the Atlantic Ocean) there's a giant part of me that wants to strap this watch to my wrist and see what it's like to wear the best, most unnecessary, most outrageous, and maybe most giddy-inducing release we've seen so far this year in the environment it was apparently designed for: deep-sea diving. But I'll probably need to get two – one for each wrist – to balance things out so I don't spend my entire dive swimming in circles.

For other specs and more information, read our Introducing post or visit Rolex.

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The Hodinkee Shop has a wide selection of pre-owned Rolex watches. For more on the new solid gold Deepsea, visit Rolex online.