Mass Appeal: The Submersible Navy SEALs Afniotech Experience PAM01089, Hands On

The Submersible Navy SEALs Afniotech Experience PAM01089 is notable for several reasons. It is first of all, a limited edition of 35 pieces which is a quite small series for a 1000 meter water resistant diver’s watch. It’s also a very small number for a Panerai Navy Seals watch; which in the past have tended to run into the hundreds. Second, there is its mass, about which more in a minute; the watch head weighs 200 grams. Then there is the Navy Seals Experience itself, which is a highly unusual additional element – anyone who buys the watch will be able to participate in a three day “Navy SEALs Experience” during which, as Panerai puts it, ” … owners will immerse themselves in elite-style training, tactical exercises, and simulations, testing both their resilience and the performance of their Panerai timepiece.”

The watch is something rare in watchmaking: an actual technical first. The Afniotech gets its name from the rare metal the case is made of: hafnium.

Hafnium is very exotic stuff. First of all, it’s quite rare – it’s usually found along with zirconium, and both elements are found in Group 4 on the periodic table of elements. This means, unfortunately for anyone trying to extract pure hafnium, that it’s very difficult to separate out from zirconium as they are almost identical chemically. Hafnium exists in a ratio of about one part to fifty parts with zirconium, so you have to purify a lot of zirconium to get a little hafnium. About sixty to seventy thousand tons of zirconium are produced every year, compared to just seventy to ninety tons of hafnium.

Both metals have many uses – hafnium, in small amounts, is added to nickel-based alloys used in jet engine turbines, for increased strength and resistance to high temperatures. Both metals are essential in the nuclear power industry as well, where zirconium is used as a cladding for fuel rods, and hafnium is used for control rods. In nuclear reactors, the fissioning or splitting of atoms is accomplished by neutrons, and hafnium is a great neutron absorber – lowering hafnium control rods into a nuclear reactor is like throwing water on a fire.

It’s a great material for watch cases. It’s very strong – about as strong as titanium – and tough, and it’s also highly corrosion resistant. Like titanium, aluminum, and chromium (which is used to prevent corrosion in stainless steels) hafnium reacts quickly with oxygen, and a layer of hafnium oxide forms on the surface of anything made of hafnium, which prevents further oxidation.

It is challenging to machine, however. As you machine hafnium, it gets harder and harder, and it also tends to gall – to stick to the edge of a cutting tool, instead of falling cleanly away. Hafnium dust is also flammable – it can spontaneously self-ignite – so if you’re machining it, you need to keep a constant flow of coolant over the cutting tool (tungsten carbide tools are recommended) to suppress dust, and to keep the cutting tool and hafnium from overheating.

Part of the reason it’s never been used in watchmaking before, is that most hafnium ends up being used in the semiconductor, nuclear, and aerospace industries, and it’s also extremely expensive. A kilogram of 316L stainless steel, which is the most commonly used stainless steel alloy for watch cases, along with 904L, will set you back around three to five bucks; the same amount of hafnium goes for six to seven thousand dollars. All these factors combine to make it very unlikely that hafnium will ever be anything other than an exotic rarity in watchmaking.

Hafnium’s density means that this is a heavy watch – 200 grams, compared to (for instance) the classic Seiko diver, SKX007, which is 142 grams. If you’ve ever handled a watch with a tantalum case, you have a sense of the physical authority of hafnium (tantalum is actually the next element on the periodic table after hafnium). It has a strange, silver-gray glow to it; it actually looks like something that belongs in a nuclear reactor.

As with tantalum, the mass of the watch is a constant reminder that you have something really unusual on your wrist, and highly technical as well. Hafnium did not start to be produced in any quantities until the late 1940s and all of it that exists, is a by-product of separating it from the much more common zirconium for the nuclear power industry.

This is, of course, not only an exercise in exotic materials science – it’s a high performance diver’s watch as well. If you followed our coverage from Watches & Wonders 2026, you probably noticed that this year for Panerai the show was really about returning to its roots, in tool watches designed for use by military units. The Afniotech is also the latest in a long line of watches made of unconventional materials at Panerai, which includes ceramic, ceramized titanium (Ti-Ceramitech), marine-grade bronze, forged carbon, BMG (bulk metallic glass), and its own proprietary gold and platinum alloys. The Afniotech is a true diving instrument, rated to 1000 meters (and tested to a static pressure of 1250 meters, or 25% more than the rating) and equipped with a unidirectional bezel, as well as the distinctive Luminor locking crown guard.

If you want something really on the cutting edge of materials science – and you also want a watch with the wrist presence of a tank turret, and the durability of one as well – it would be hard to improve on the Afniotech. (The stuff even has a ridiculously high melting point – a hafnium based ceramic, hafnium carbonitride, has a predicted melting point of 4,110 °C, or 7,430 °F, the highest of any known substance, though if you are in a situation where this is being put to the test, you probably have some very urgent and immediate problems).

And then, of course, there’s the Navy SEALs experience. Panerai has offered these experiences before, and in 2022, Revolution’s Troy Barmore was along for the ride. His report on the experience makes it clear that it’s pretty intense – physically and mentally demanding, but also an education in effective teamwork in a high stress environment. If you’ve ever wished you could do calisthenics in cold, wet boots in the pre-dawn darkness with a dozen strangers while a retired Special Forces operator ungently and vigorously urges you to exert yourself, this might be the watch for you.

The Panerai Submersible Navy SEALs Afniotech Experience PAM01089: case, hafnium alloy (more than 95% hafnium), 47mm diameter, with hafnium bezel, caseback, crown and crown guard; all bead blasted to a matte finish. Movement, automatic mechanical, P.9010/GMT caliber, 13¾ lignes, 6.0 mm thick, 31 jewels, Glucydur balance, 28,800 vph. Power reserve 3 days, two barrels. Price, $99,500; limited edition of 35 pieces worldwide. 

The 1916 Company is proud to be an authorized retailer for Panerai watches. For more information on the Afniotech PAM01089, or to enquire about availability, please contact us.