I Review A Watch: The Sherpa Ultradive Is A Product Of An Obsessed Mind

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The Sherpa Ultradive Is A Product Of An Obsessed Mind

There’s this hotel on the Croatian island of Krk that is the stuff of legends. It was built at the height of socialist rule in Croatia in 1971, so one would assume it to be a conservative resort for workers. But no. Croatia, then part of Yugoslavia, had a bit of a different approach to socialism. Yugoslavia played both the East and the West against each other, trying to take the best from both worlds and meld it into its own unique thing. And so was the hotel, a very unique thing. Named Haludovo Palace Hotel, it was built by Bob Guccione in 1971. Now, two things are of note here. First, Bob Guccione is not a traditional Croatian name, meaning that a foreigner — American at that — was allowed to invest $45 million into a privately-owned hotel in socialist Croatia. And second — stop me if you already know what I’m going to say — Bob Guccione was the scandalous owner of Penthouse magazine. Let that sink in. One of the three premiere paddlers of smut in the world showed up on Krk and built an incredible hotel and resort.

Only, it wasn’t just a hotel and resort. It was the sight for the Penthouse Adriatic Club casino. The hotel was designed by Boris Magaš, one of the most important Croatian architects and it was one of his first massive forays into postmodern architecture. It was a sight to behold, as nothing like it has been built before. It was also the sight of incredible debauchery. Royalty and celebrities from all over the world visited Krk with their mistresses, where they would be free from the press to enjoy great wine, fine foods and gamble their inheritances away. But the party was short lived. The casino went bankrupt in 1973, Guccione split and the hotel was put into ownership of a state-owned company, because of a small issue of some unpaid taxes. After the war, the property was sold off, changing owners every now and again.

I visited Haludovo a few weeks ago. It is a complete ruin, becoming dangerous to the public. However, just as we were there, the local paper published a huge article that Haludovo is getting a new lease on life. This is like the tenth time this is happening, so no one believes it, but it’s kind of important to the story I’m trying to tell. Supposedly bought by a shady  retired Croatian general, he has plans on rebuilding Haludovo the way it was when Guccione was running it. But the issue is, this is some conservative businessman who is trying to revive something that one of the coolest people of the 20th century made. The general can try to make it look like Guccione’s Haludovo. But it will never actually be Guccione’s Haludovo.

And the fate of this once majestic hotel was in a weird way reflected in the watch I was wearing when I visited Haludovo. It was the Sherpa Ultradive. In a world that has increasingly more compressor-style watches, the Sherpa is different. While other compressor-style watches want to look like Guccione’s Haludovo, the Sherpa actually revived Guccione’s Haludovo. What do I mean with this bizarre analogy? The (super-) compressor is a diving watch that had a very unique construction. Patented by Ervin Piquerez S.A. (EPSA), the case was made with a special spring-like O-ring that got gradually compressed, sealing the case tighter and tighter the more pressure was acting upon it. They made these watches between the 1950s and 1970s and the Enicar Sherpa was one of them. This was an incredibly cool system, but one that’s incredibly difficult to recreate. That’s why the vast majority of the watches that use the EPSA-characteristic two crown system are just faint copies of the system, regular look-a-likes. Kind of what I had in mind with the copy of Guccione’s Haludovo, right?

But wait, what’s up with the Enicar Sherpa? Isn’t the watch called the Sherpa Ultradive. It sure is. Made by Enicar, the Sherpa was named after the sherpas who helped Swiss mountaineers summit Mt Everest and Lhotse in 1956. The expedition was provided watches by Enicar so it only made sense that the company would pay homage to the people who made the accent possible. The Sherpa line was based on the EPSA case and quickly grew, with the addition of complications up until the 1980s, when the company folded. Enicar is now owned by a Hong Kong-based holding company and makes incredibly generic mall-destined watches.

So, how did we get to the Sherpa Ultradive from the Enicar Sherpa? It’s all thanks to German engineer Martin Klocke. He loved the old Enicar Sherpa and as any enthusiast with a strong love, decided to bring it back to life. But Enicar wouldn’t budge. There was no way that he would be able to make the Enicar Sherpa. So he decided to name the brand Sherpa and build from there. Klocke is instrumental for the watch I got to wear on my wrist. When I got it, it cemented everything I thought about it. It was, perhaps, the most bizarre watch ever wore. It was large, incredibly expensive, bizarrely complicated and wildest of all — it was a fully polished dive watch. When’s the last time you’ve seen something like that.

And yet… the moment I put it on the wrist, everything I thought about the watch just melted away. You are instantly struck with one thought — this is incredibly comfortable. No, really. I don’t think I have ever worn such a comfortable watch. It just melts to your wrist. Let me illustrate it how comfortable it is. I, like (I assume) most people, take my watches off when I go to sleep and when I hop into the shower. After a day of exploring the Haludovo ruins, and a few beers I crashed into my rented apartment’s bed. Have you ever woken up in an unfamiliar bed, not sure where the hell you are, but also in pitch blackness, with a ripping headache from those cheap beers? Yeah, that’s exactly what happen to me that day. Imagine my surprise when I realised that I was asleep with a watch on my hand, something that would never, ever hand. And I was even more surprised that the lume was still glowing, despite being in the dark for at least 5 hours. That’s cool. But also, there were at least three occasions that I got into the shower and turned the water on before I realised that I was wearing the Sherpa. It’s that comfortable.

Let’s get some basics out of the way, now that we’re talking about comfort. The watch comes in a stainless steel case that measures 40mm wide and 13.5mm thick. You don’t really notice all that thickness because of a lot of it is the domed sapphire crystal. The lug-to-lug sounds large at 49.3mm, and yes, I have huge wrists, but trust me when I say that it’s not that large on wrist. This is perhaps down to the angled lugs. And like I said, the case is fully polished, a wild choice for what should be a tool watch. At first I was confused by this, but after a week, I was completely in love with it. If fully polished is not your thing, you can get the OPS version which has a black DLC coat or the variant Sherpa made in collaboration with The Real Time Show podcast, which gets a more traditional satin blasted case.

But even more important than the size is the fact that Klocke went all out when it comes to construction. The asymmetrical right side of the case serves as guard for the two proprietary MONOFLEX crowns, another bit of technology carried over from the original Sherpa. This means that you get 200 meters of water resistance with crowns that don’t screw down. The top crown moves the internal rotating bezel — and it’s one of the smoothest bezel rotating actions that I have ever experienced — while the bottom one can be pulled out to set the time and date. More cool engineering can be found on the back, where it has the EPSA-STOP bayonet compressor system that gets squeezed with water pressure. And to pay homage to this system, Klocke acquired the logo of the EPSA company, a dive helmet surrounded with a chain, and uses it on the caseback.

The dial keeps thing super simple, in the best possible way. It’s a domed black main part, surrounded by a white inner dive bezel with black and orange markings. That orange stripe on the bezel is also lumed and it looks extremely cool when glowing. The indices are applied and have luminous dots. The hour and minute hands are faceted, with a very neat white double-lollipop seconds hand. There’s also a date window at 3 o’clock with a white date disc inside. I have to say, I didn’t mind it, despite usually not liking contrasting date wheels.

Inside, you’ll find more puzzles. The movement inside is called the Mantramatic MM01. Despite the exoteric name, it’s a fairly pedestrian thing. It’s the top-grade Sellita SW200-1 automatic. There’s nothing special about this watch at all. You can find it in a bunch of sub-1,000 euro microbrands. It beats at 4Hz, has about 40 hours of power reserve and is relatively accurate. It’s also quite reliable and super easy to service pretty much anywhere in the world, since it’s based on the ETA2824 architecture. But Klocke, a Buddhist, does something extra to the movement. Each movement has two wheels that are microscopically laser-engraved with a traditional Tibetan Buddhist mantra of Om Mani Peme Hung, often found on Tibetan prayer wheels. With it, the Sherpa watches send out vibes of love, wisdom and compassion at a rate of 30 million times per year.

The watch I had came on a black and a white tropic-style rubber strap, but these aren’t the regular rubber straps you’ll find on any old watch. It sounds silly to say this, but these really are premium rubber straps. They feel silky in your hands and, trust me on this, have a spectacular smell to them. Now, there’s also an option of a steel bracelet that looks beautiful, but I haven’t had a chance to try it out. The watch also comes with a pretty spectacular leather two-watch travel case. No, really, I’m not kidding. A reputable watch accessory company would easily charge you €200-300 for it.

So, the Ultradive is the product of an obsessed mind. No, really, consider what Martin Klocke did here. He stepped around the Enicar brand name issue, did an incredible amount of research on EPSA — check out the Sherpa website, there’s a ton of archival material there — purchased the rights to recreate some of the iconic EPSA imagery, found a way to remake this super-complex compressor system without any watch experience or financial backing from a large company. And craziest of all, something that I haven’t even mentioned yet, is the fact that Klocke insisted on one crazy thing — make as much of the watch as possible in Europe. It’s almost impossible to describe how ambitious it is to make such a low volume watch by artisans and companies in Europe. Even the most iconic Swiss brands will have some things outsourced to Asia, because stuff like cutting out cases is just cost prohibitive in Europe.

You see where this is going. All of these moves add up to a very expensive watch. Especially since it’s powered by a SW200. But sometimes, just sometimes, a watch is more than the sum of its parts. And this is one such watch. It’s priced at €6,400. Expensive, yes. But do not think of this as just another watch. It’s the result of an incredible passion of one man who decided to go all in, dive head first into the deep end, and make a watch he wanted to wear. If he can find enough people around him who want to wear the same, he’ll be very glad to sell it to them. I can respect that. See the watch for yourself on the Sherpa website.

-Vuk