Edox is releasing a Limited Edition watch of the Sharkman II, and the man behind it all is as cold as it comes.

Christian Redl is a free diver, a person who does diving without any assisted breathing. His entire trip lasts the duration of one breath… so he’s got to be careful. Because once he goes down, he can’t breathe again until he breaks the surface at the end.

Christian Redl is a man who found his calling and followed it hard. When he was young he saw The Big Blue, Luc Besson’s definitive free-diving film, and it spoke to him. He’s pursued it to the achievement of multiple records, diving deep without any air but that he holds in his lungs.

Now, Edox is sending him not just into the deep, but into the cold. Christian Redl will enter the freezing Lake Weissensee in Austria, to break the world record for under-ice free diving. It’s a record he knows intimately, since Christian himself set it. It’s one of the many world records he holds, and his plan to break it.

He’ll be wearing a 5mm wetsuit, but the lake will be cold indeed. He plans to dive to the current record of 65 meters. (That’s 65 meters, in ice cold water, on one breath. Just to keep things in perspective.) Then, he’s going to go beyond it, aiming for 75 meters.

It’s just a physical challenge for Redl, it literally involves physics. Everything contracts in the cold, including the human body. Which includes Redl’s lung capacity. Cold can reduce the lung capacity by as much as one-third.

Among other things, this means Christian can’t afford (ironically) to warm up before the dive. He has to start the dive immediately, before the water makes his body too cold to make the trip – and once you get down there, the only way out is through. To help with that, he’ll be wearing a special Edox Sharkman II diver’s watch, one of a limited edition of 300. The Sharkman II can take the Lake Weissensee cold, and a diver’s watch is invaluable to any diver. Something for Christian Redl to rely on, on his long swim through the cold dark.