Luminox Pacific Diver FORCE BLUE: A Dive Watch Built for a Different Kind of Mission

Luminox has spent decades making watches around people who work in difficult environments. The new Pacific Diver FORCE BLUE XS.3125.FB continues that idea, but the mission behind it is a little different.

FORCE BLUE brings former Special Operations veterans and military-trained combat divers together with marine scientists, putting skills developed during military service to work on coral restoration, marine research and conservation projects.

Luminox has supported FORCE BLUE operations since 2022, with the relationship developing into an official partnership. The new Pacific Diver is the first watch designed specifically around that relationship, with input from former Special Operations divers feeding directly into its specification.

And that is what makes this more interesting than simply putting another organisation's logo on an existing watch.

What Is FORCE BLUE?

FORCE BLUE is a US non-profit organisation that takes an unusual approach to both marine conservation and life after military service.

Founded in 2016, it recruits former Special Operations veterans, including military-trained combat divers, and retrains them to work alongside marine scientists and conservation professionals. Instead of leaving highly specialised diving skills behind when military service ends, FORCE BLUE puts those skills to work on a completely different kind of mission.

That can mean coral restoration, marine debris removal, underwater surveys, invasive-species work, shipwreck mapping, wildlife rescue and scientific research. Since the organisation was formed, FORCE BLUE says it has trained and deployed dozens of Special Operations veterans on more than 50 conservation missions in the US and internationally.

The idea originally came from a 2015 diving trip involving co-founders Jim Ritterhoff, Keith Sahm and former Recon Marine Rudy Reyes. Reyes had spent years diving professionally in a military environment, where going underwater meant completing a mission rather than exploring it. Seeing a coral reef recreationally helped lead to the idea of bringing former military divers together with the scientific community and giving those skills a new purpose.

FORCE BLUE describes that process as “mission therapy”: former combat divers are retrained and redeployed on conservation, preservation and restoration projects, giving them a continued sense of service while providing marine organisations with an unusually capable diving team.

And these aren't symbolic deployments. In July 2026, for example, FORCE BLUE veterans carried out 99 dives off Jacksonville and Mayport and removed 1,493lb of marine debris. Its wider work has included coral restoration, coral-disease response, research projects and deployments across US National Marine Sanctuaries. 

A Pacific Diver Developed With FORCE BLUE Divers

The Pacific Diver FORCE BLUE uses the familiar 3120 Series as its starting point. There is a 44mm stainless-steel case, paired with a lightweight CARBONOX unidirectional diving bezel. Water resistance is rated to 200 metres, with a protected screw-down crown, screw-in caseback and sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating.  Those numbers are familiar Pacific Diver territory. The more interesting details are the ones that came out of the FORCE BLUE collaboration.

Luminox says retired Special Operations and combat divers provided direct feedback around the requirements of the watch. That resulted in details including an expandable NBR rubber strap and a separate strap extender, allowing it to be worn over a wetsuit or diving equipment.  That's a simple feature, but a good example of the difference between a watch that looks like diving equipment and one whose details have been considered around actually getting into the water.

“Our brands are built from the same DNA. Performance means nothing if you don’t perform. Our mission is to get veterans together to go out and perform marine conservation and help the planet. And the FORCE BLUE Pacific Diver watch allows us to do just that.”

Jim Ritterhoff, FORCE BLUE Co-Founder

Blue, Yellow and a Detail Taken From the FORCE BLUE Logo

Visually, this is one of the more distinctive Pacific Divers we've seen. The dial is deep blue, with yellow-gold markers and matching details across the bezel. Those colours aren't arbitrary; they reference FORCE BLUE's own identity. Look closer and there's another detail around the outside of the dial.

A rope motif taken from the FORCE BLUE logo runs around the chapter ring. Rather than leaving it purely decorative, Luminox has coated it with Super-LumiNova, allowing the design to become visible as the light drops.  That works alongside Luminox's own illumination system rather than replacing it.

Luminox Light Technology With Two Different Colours

Luminox Light Technology has always been one of the brand's defining features. Instead of relying entirely on conventional luminous paint that needs to be charged by an external light source, LLT uses self-powered illumination designed to remain visible continuously for up to 25 years.  The FORCE BLUE watch makes particularly good use of it.

The hour positions from 1 to 11 use blue LLT tubes, while 12 o'clock switches to yellow. The hour and minute hands are also yellow, with blue illumination on the seconds hand. The different colours aren't there simply to make the lume shot more interesting. They give 12 o'clock and the main timekeeping hands immediate visual separation when you're reading the watch in darkness.  The bezel gets its own yellow LLT marker at 12 as well. Combine that with the glowing rope motif and the FORCE BLUE becomes considerably more distinctive once the lights go down.

Why CARBONOX and Stainless Steel?

Rather than making the entire watch from one material, the Pacific Diver combines a 316L stainless-steel case with a CARBONOX bezel.

There is a practical reason for that.

The steel provides the corrosion resistance expected from a watch intended for repeated use around salt water, while CARBONOX keeps the large rotating bezel light and tough.

It's a combination already established elsewhere in the Pacific Diver collection. Current 44mm models use the same basic steel-and-CARBONOX format alongside sapphire crystals and 200m water resistance.

For the FORCE BLUE version, that proven platform has been adapted rather than unnecessarily reinvented.

The Strap Might Be One of Its Most Important Features

At first glance, the blue rubber strap simply ties the watch into the rest of the colour scheme.

But it is one of the details worth paying attention to.

Luminox uses an expandable 24mm NBR rubber strap, with an additional matching extender supplied specifically for wearing the watch over diving equipment.

That came directly from feedback around the way FORCE BLUE divers would use the watch.

Again, it's not a spectacular complication.

It's just useful.

And for this particular watch, that is much more important.

The FORCE BLUE Details Don't Stop at the Dial

Turn the watch over and the collaboration continues.

The screw-in stainless-steel caseback carries a large engraved FORCE BLUE emblem, while the protected screw-down crown carries the Luminox logo.

The overall measurements are substantial without being unusually thick for the category:

• 44mm diameter
• 12mm thickness
• 105g
• 24mm strap
• 200m water resistance
• Swiss Ronda 515 quartz
• Sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating
• CARBONOX unidirectional bezel
• Luminox Light Technology
• Expandable NBR strap and diving extender

UK RRP is £675.

More Than a Logo on a Dial

Watch collaborations can sometimes be fairly superficial.

Change the colours, add a logo to the caseback and tell a story around it.

The Luminox Pacific Diver FORCE BLUE has more substance than that.

The colour scheme and FORCE BLUE branding are obviously part of the appeal, but the more interesting story is the involvement of the divers themselves: the expandable strap, diving extender, visibility choices and materials all connect back to how the watch is intended to be used.

FORCE BLUE has a particularly unusual mission, too. These are people taking skills developed for one very demanding part of their lives and applying them to something completely different.

As FORCE BLUE puts it, the organisation brings the Special Operations veteran community together with marine science and conservation in an effort to restore both marine environments and a sense of continued purpose after military service.