Ulysse Nardin's Latest Diver Is All About Supporting Veterans
Welcome to Dialed In, Esquire's weekly column bringing you horological happenings and the most essential news from the watch world since March 2020.
Ex-U.S. Navy SEAL Alex West founded his registered non-profit, One More Wave, back in 2015 to give a sense of community and purpose to disabled veterans through the medium of surfing. Based in San Diego, California, he and a small team of volunteers build surf boards tailored to the physical and performance needs of individual vets, who gain access to surfing through five OMW centers across the country.
Nautically fixated watch brand Ulysse Nardin teamed up with One More Wave in 2019 with a special edition of its contemporary Diver Deep Dive watch. This month, the partnership is back with a new iteration, officially named the Diver Chronometer 44m OMW, to raise funds again for operations at One More Wave.
The new, 300m-rated diver is a certified chronometer, which means, in modern parlance, that it has been subjected to rigorous accuracy testing by the independent Swiss agency known as COSC (Contrôle Officielle Suisse des Chronomètres). Such technical precision in a contemporary sport watch is relatively rare, making this an interesting proposition for serious collectors looking to do a good turn. Historically, UN’s output has been focused on ever-more-accurate timekeeping. Since its inception in 1846, the company has made navigational timepieces for as many as 40 of the world’s navies, all with the high degree of accuracy necessary to efficiently travel the high seas. So, COSC’s approval places this new release firmly within a long tradition for the brand in terms of function.
Where it breaks from that tradition, though, is in aesthetics. Whereas older Ulysse Nardin watches generally echoed its old-school calling in marine navigation, with stark white dials and roman numerals, in the past 15 years, the maker has broken out of its traditional design language to create forward-looking and sporty pieces. The Diver Chronometer 44m OMW follows suit with those newer offerings, coming in matte black sandblasted titanium on gray rubber with turquoise accents in a starkly modern looking case.
The new watch, in an edition of 100 pieces, houses a Calibre UN 118 in-house movement featuring hours, seconds, minutes, date, and a power reserve indicator at 12 o’clock. It also features a concave, inward-facing bezel, once a common fixture of professional dive watches. The transparent sapphire case back, meanwhile, is engraved with the logos of both Ulysse Nardin and One More Wave.
Looking to do more but not in the market for a watch? Click here or use your phone to scan the QR code and donate to One More Wave.
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