Design & History
The first Omega Seamasters appeared in 1948, and the Rolex Submariner & Blancpain Fifty Fathoms first appeared in 1953, but no current brand has more maritime history than Ulysse Nardin.
In 1874 Ulysse Nardin received its first marine chronometry certificate and since then has supplied navies & shipping companies in over 50 countries including the US, UK, Russia and Japan. But it wasn’t until 2003 that Ulysse Nardin combined its marine chronometers history with a dive watch, the Marine Diver.
The instantly recognizable design of small seconds at 6 and power reserve at 12 o’clock is directly taken from the design of their marine chronometers, while the rubber/metal strap & wave pattern on the bezel are inherited from the first generation of Marine Diver.
This second-generation Marine Diver, in production from 2014 to 2018 distinguishes itself with a metal insert on the bezel, wave pattern on the dial, sailboat on the case back and an upgrade to 300M of water resistance, up from 200M in the first generation.
On the Wrist
This 44mm steel watch shrinks on the wrist the moment you put it on. Visually this is done through the stepped out lugs and black coated crown that break down the size of the watch at its extremities, but more so is the way that the watch hugs the wrist.
The rubber diving strap with its metal inserts not only defines this watch as a Ulysse Nardin visually, but it also eliminates any strap flare caused from the seamless integration with the lugs, allowing it to wrap right around the shape of any wrist and making the watch both comfortable and more friendly to smaller wrists.
The clasp is a secure double deployant, and along with the metal inserts is made of lightweight titanium despite the watch being a stainless steel piece. This makes this 44 by 13.5mm steel dive watch feel much lighter than you’d expect, making it a great everyday and weekend piece for everything short of formalwear and suits.
Technical
With the Marine Diver, there is very little compromise between style and substance. The symmetry of the subdials not only is aesthetically pleasing, but it makes the hours and minutes much more legible – and the power reserve is genuinely useful for divers wanting to ensure they don’t go underwater with an unwound watch – a useful function on a 300M water-resistant watch.
Both the power reserve indicator and small seconds are part of a proprietary Ulysse Nardin module mounted atop a chronometer-certified ETA2892 – making the UN-26 somewhat of a hybrid between an in-house and outsourced caliber.
The 2892 offers 42 hours of power reserve and helps this 300M water resistance watch maintain a relatively slim profile of only 13.5mm.
And the inverted cyclops over the date isn’t just a design cue – the added height from the module meant the date window was further away from the sapphire, similar to the modular chronograph found on a royal oak offshore, as such the same solution was employed to improve legibility of the date.
In terms of both comfort and technical capacity, for nearly every aesthetic design cue on the Marine Diver, there is a functional benefit or reason behind it.
Finish & Details
If you close your eyes and think of a dive watch, most likely you’ll picture the blueprint laid out by the Rolex submariner – mostly satin finish, steel bracelet, monochromatic bezel, crown guards, straight lines, you get the idea.
What Ulysse Nardin has managed to do is to still deliver a dive watch as good as any on paper, but with a completely different design language that makes it more like a work of art than just a tool.
The subtle wave pattern on the dial evokes the sea as it catches the light and vanishes when it doesn’t, creating a sensation of motion as it moves. There’s an additional pattern on the upper parts of the strap evoking the deck of a boat before transitioning into the titanium inserts proudly bearing the Ulysse Nardin logo. Even the lugs are stepped out, adding more depth as well as evoking the steps on to a yacht.
The bezel echos the wave motif from the dial, and while it may not be relieved as with its predecessor and successor, it still carries on the notion of the ocean as the light hits the waves. And while the case is all finished in high polish, it doesn’t steal the show or seem flashy, instead just forming part of a cocktail of finishes and textures that make the look of the Marine Diver.
Even the plaque on the side may not show how many where produced, but knowing which one you have ads a sensation that this is a watch made in much smaller quantities than its competitors.
And this is the true appeal of the Marine Diver, while Omega, Rolex and Breitling will make tens if not hundreds of thousands of their divers, all with very similar and comparable traits and dimensions, the Ulysse Nardin provides a more exclusive and distinctive option, with more nautical history than the rest, and speaking volumes about the exceptional taste of its owners.
