U-Boat Classico Sommerso Ghiera Ceramica Automatic Watch with Black Dial.
Descended from the diving watch Ilvo Fontana drew in 1942 for the Italian naval forces, the Classico line carries the left-hand crown that drawing placed there. The Classico Sommerso Ghiera Ceramica sets a two-tone ceramic insert into the graduated unidirectional bezel, marked with white Super-LumiNova references. The case, in stainless steel, measures 46 mm in diameter.
A U-28 automatic movement powers the hours, minutes, seconds, date and a 24-hour indicator beneath a sapphire crystal with anti-reflective treatment and a lens over the date window. The crown screws down on the left under a patented protective device, and seven external screws seal the case back. The 24-hour hand and the reference on the minute hand are picked out in red.
Three superimposed dials build the face, with a visible ruby and numerals framed in brushed metal, two-tone, blue at the top and black at the foot, the ceramic bezel insert repeating the pair. Hands, numerals and indexes are treated with white Super-LumiNova for legibility in the dark. It comes on an ultra-resistant vulcanized rubber strap lined with calfskin and treated with Kodiak, measuring 22 mm at the lugs, closed by a steel tongue buckle.
It comes from a watch Ilvo Fontana drew in 1942 for the Italian naval forces, a diver whose crown sat on the left so the hands could be set from that side. His grandson Italo Fontana founded U-Boat in Lucca around that drawing, and the patented clamp over the crown is the part he added.
A hand that turns once a day against a track marked from 1 to 24, so a glance separates morning from evening on a dial whose hour hand turns twice. Marine and aviation logs keep a 24-hour clock, which is where the reading comes from.
Ceramic is fired to a hardness above that of hardened steel, and it holds its color under sunlight and salt water, so the scale on the bezel stays legible for the life of the watch. It is brittle in exchange, so the edge is what to keep away from a hard knock.
Set the marker to the minute hand at the start of a dive and read the elapsed time off the scale. Because the bezel turns in a single direction, any knock can only shorten the time it shows, which errs on the side of surfacing early.
A ruby set into the dial. It is purely decorative, and it marks the Sommerso dials the way the serial plate on the case flank marks the case.
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