Ulysse Nardin Maxi Marine Diver Titanium chronometer

At the upcoming Basel 2009 fair, the Swiss manufacture Ulysse Nardin will present a new member of the Maxi Marine watches. Staying true to the original Maxi Marine Diver series design, the watch features a unidirectional rotating bezel, a Cyclops’ eye above the small round date window and the same dial layout. That’s the good news. Click ‘read more’ for the bad news.

The bad news is that the Diver, that wasn’t really small from the beginning, has become even larger growing to unhealthy 45 mm in diameter. Adding insult to injury, UN has also equipped the chronometer with a huge crown protruding from the watch’s bezel for, let me guess, about 5.5 mm. Not a tragedy, but some of you may experience a painful moment of revelation when the crown will bite you in the palm’s back.

This is, so far, the only ergonomics issue that I was able to find at the first glance. UN’s trademark rubber-metal (gold in this particular case, but you may also opt in for a titanium part) combination strap is, in my humble opinion, the best mean to keep the watch on a wrist, and all the vital information on the watch’s dial is so finely organized it almost hurts.

Well, that’s no wonder because the Ulysse Nardin Maxi Marine Diver Titanium’s dial layout is almost a direct quotation of the original maritime chronometers produced by the company in times when the Sun, sextants and chronometers were the only means of telling a ships position on the face of the Earth.

For example, the power reserve indicator on the 12 o’clock reminded the skipper to timely wind the spring if he didn’t want to find himself lost in the ocean (small pun intended). Even the “1846″ printed in the red digits on the second’s sub-dial looks almost exactly like the individual numbers of the “real” chronometers. The trademark coin-edge bezel also comes from the times when you had to actually open the chronometer’s case to manually position the hour and minutes hands.

The only deviation from the original concept is the rather small date window with a Cyclops’ eye above it introduced for the practicality sake and the lack of the Roman or Arabic numerals abandoned for the sake of style. Well, you won’t find a wave-patterned dial and guilloche-decorated sub-dials on a real maritime chronometer as well.

The watch is powered by the UN-26 movement, which is, alas, not an in-house caliber, but a decorated and readjusted ETA 2892 base caliber that you may also find inside the DOXA SUB 5000T Seaconqueror diving watch. The movement beats at 28,800 vibrations per hour and provides the chronometer with a power reserve of about 42 hours.

All in all, the watch is nice, but you’ll have to wear it with care, for never was a story of more woe than a polished titanium watch with lots of oxidized scratches on its case.

Ulysse Nardin Maxi Marine Diver Titanium chronometer watch’s specification :

Price range: N/A, around $20,000 I suppose
Movement: UN-2626 based on ETA 2892 automatic caliber, COSC-certified chronometer
Complications: Date, power reserve indicator
Power reserve: 42 hours
Case material: Titanium with 18 kt rose gold rotating bezel
Case dimensions: 45 mm
Case height: N/A
Dial: Black or silver with wave-pattern and white indices
Water resistance: 200 meters
Strap: Rubber strap with 18 kt gold or titanium elements
Crystal: Sapphire, anti-reflective, convex

Tags: Automatic, chronometer, COSC, Diver, diving watch, ETA 2892, Maxi Marine, rose gold, Titanium, Ulysse Nardin, UN-26