Hands On With The Grand Seiko U.F.A. Ushio 300 Diver: Best Dive Watch Ever?

Generally speaking, dive watches do not attract superlatives; unless one is introduced, which sets a new record for water resistance, there isn’t a whole lot to say, for several reasons. Of all the types of watches, diver’s watches are the ones where there is the least amount of leeway for jazzing around. The requirements are specific: 100 meters of water resistance minimum, a one-way elapsed time bezel, visibility at a distance of 25 centimeters in the dark, testing of each watch (as opposed to sample testing, which is all that’s required for “water resistant” watches as opposed to diver’s watches) to an overpressure of 125% of the stated rating, and so on. As a result, there is a family similarity not found in most other types of watches (although there is a strong family resemblance between most world time watches) and innovation such as it is, is even more incremental in diver’s watches than it is in other categories.

Seiko launched a couple of new diver’s watches this year which show that while it takes some doing, it’s still possible to break new ground in what is generally a pretty played-out category. The watches in question are the Spring Drive UFA Ushio 300 Diver watches, and they may be the most purely practical analog dive watches available today.

The Ushio 300 Diver watches are on the small side for Seiko and Grand Seiko dive watches, which are usually pretty hefty, in keeping with their utilitarian character. They’re not small, per se, at 40.8mm x 12.9mm, but you’ll notice the size difference right away if you have any prior experience with Grand Seiko dive watches (or, for that matter, most other dive watches). They’re also quite light – the case material is Grand Seiko’s High-Intensity Titanium, which is a proprietary titanium alloy that’s much harder than standard Grade 2 titanium, and which takes a higher polish as well. For diver’s watches, titanium is, arguably, the best material – it is inarguably more corrosion resistant than stainless steels (which can be susceptible to pitting corrosion, although this is unusual in modern watch manufacturing – although it never hurts to remember that you’re advised to rinse off your dive watch in fresh water after immersion in salt water for a reason).

This makes them quite a bit more versatile than the usual 42mm to 45mm (more or less) diameter of most other diver’s watches, and while I wouldn’t wear one to a black tie event, James Bond notwithstanding, they are suitable for pretty much anything else (and thanks to the hardness of High-Intensity Titanium, you can wear them for just about any activity you can think of as well.)

There are two models: SLGB023, with a deep blue Ushio dial – “ushio” means “tide” in Japanese – and SLGB025, with a sort of seafoam green dial. Both are very beautiful, which more or less goes without saying when you’re talking about Grand Seiko dials, and the visual effect is a bit uncanny – the dials have a color gradient going from almost black at the edge, to a lighter color with pronounced highlights in the center, and it really does feel like you’re looking at a color photograph of the surface of the ocean at dawn, or perhaps at dusk – maybe taken on a film camera using something like Fujifilm Velvia, which is a film type you’ve probably heard of if you shoot film.

The effect is a little more noticeable with the green-dialed SLGB025, because it’s a bit less dark overall, but you get a quite fantastically evocative dial either way. I’d probably pick the green one, personally, although that’s partly because blue dials are over-represented in my own collection. The green feels a little more shallow-water-surf’s-up-seaside, and the blue a bit more the-abyss-lies-beneath, if that helps.

There are a lot of diver’s watches out there, to put it mildly, and the question of which is the best – from a design standpoint, from a functional standpoint, or both – is one which can never be settled absolutely but you can make a strong case for Spring Drive divers in general, and this one in particular. Spring Drive, it’s worth mentioning, is not a battery-powered technology – it’s in the name, Spring Drive watches are powered by a mainspring, and they have a conventional gear train right up to where the escapement would be in a conventional watch.

The last gear in the going train is what Grand Seiko calls a glide wheel – this is the rotor of a tiny electrical generator, which feeds a minute trickle of power to the quartz timing package. This in turn generates a reference frequency, and applies a magnetic braking force (if you’re interested in the actual physics, the magnetic force induces what are called eddy currents in the glide wheel, which produces a braking effect). The speed of rotation of the glide wheel is controlled to eight revolutions per second, and the new divers use Grand Seiko’s U.F.A., or Ultra Fine Accuracy, technology, to produce a precision of ±20 seconds per year – this is a record for any mainspring powered watch.

For a diver’s watch, this is a great system – you don’t have to worry about a battery going dead on you, and you also get quartz controlled precision.

The Ushio divers have a feature common to earlier Spring Drive watches, but which are not used in other UFA calibers: a power reserve on the dial. The dial-side power reserve indicator is a divisive feature for Grand Seiko fans – some like it, and others feel it detracts (at least in some cases) from the purity of the dial itself. Here, though, it makes a lot of functional sense, as it lets you check and make sure you have enough running time left to use the watch as a backup dive timer without it stopping on you unexpectedly.

The Ushio divers also benefit from Grand Seiko’s recently introduced micro-adjustment clasp, which has three positions for a total range of 24mm.

I can think of plenty of wonderful dive watches with wonderful history and tons of character from other manufacturers, but the Ushio 300M Diver watches are a unique value proposition – the most accurate Spring Drive movement ever made; more-than-adequate water resistance, beautiful feel in the 60 click bezel, and two of the most elegant-yet-appropriate dial designs in modern dive watches.

They’re relatively expensive by modern dive watch standards, where the field in this price range (and below) is pretty crowded, but check out the value proposition. There are a lot of things to look at when looking at dive watches nowadays – the technology, gasketing, metallurgy, and luminous material problems are generally all solved and the various solutions are more or less mature. But, for a combination of unique features, and really seductive and unexpected beauty, the Ushio 300M Diver watches are hard to beat.

The Grand Seiko Spring Drive UFA Ushio 300 Diver: case, 40.8mm x 12.9mm, 300M water resistant, sapphire crystal with AR coating, antimagnetic to 4,800 A/m (amperes per meter). Movement, caliber 9RB1, automatic Spring Drive UFA caliber, precision ±20 seconds per year; 72 hour power reserve, running in 22 jewels. Bracelet, High Intensity Titanium, with diver’s extension and micro adjustment. Price at launch, $12,400.

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