Certina Doubles The Depth On Sea Turtle Conservancy Diver; NOMOS Shrinks The Ahoi Neomatik Sand And Sky; Beaucroft's New Arc Collection; The DUG Glashütte Purist Typ 2; Moser Goes Full Summer

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Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I know it’s the summer, so it’s to be expected, but we have a full-on onslaught of divers. And I like it a lot.

In this issue

• Certina Doubles The Depth On Its Sea Turtle Conservancy Diver With The DS Super PH2000M

• NOMOS Shrinks The Ahoi Neomatik Sand And Sky To 36mm And Drops The Date

• Beaucroft Bridges The Gap Between Dress And Daily With The New Arc Collection

• The DUG Glashütte Purist Typ 2 California Is A Very, Very Interesting Proposal

• H. Moser & Cie Goes Full Summer With the Pioneer Centre Seconds Sun Berry

👂What’s new

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Certina Doubles The Depth On Its Sea Turtle Conservancy Diver With The DS Super PH2000M

Certina's collaboration with the Sea Turtle Conservancy gave us the very cool PH1000M edition back in 2024. But it wasn’t the only one. It was the fourth STC special edition, and that one had a very vintage look and an impressive 1,000 meter depth rating. This fifth collaboration, the DS Super PH2000M, throws the retro playbook out somewhat. It’s modern, big, and rated to twice the depth.

The case is made out of grade 2 titanium, 43mm wide and 16mm thick, water-resistant to 2,000 meters. Those are serious numbers, and considering the rating it’s somewhat reasonably sized. The fact that it’s made out of titanium also helps, as the watch weighs just 117 grams on the strap. There's a helium escape valve, a screw-down crown, and a sapphire crystal on top, plus Certina's DS Concept Extreme Shock Resistance system. The unidirectional bezel has a polished black ceramic insert and a locking mechanism: press it down, turn counter-clockwise, and a spring snaps it back into place when you let go.

The STC edition gets a teal-blue dial with a sunray brush and a subtle gradient. Markers and hands are lumed, the oversized minute hand and lollipop seconds hand are easy to track, and there's a bevelled, outlined date window. The white minute track keeps everything legible. If teal is too loud, three non-limited versions exist: black on black, white with a blue bezel, and yellow with a black bezel.

Inside is the ETA Powermatic 80.611, the Swatch Group workhorse based on the 2824 architecture, running at 3Hz with a Nivachron hairspring and 80 hours of reserve. It's hidden behind a solid titanium caseback engraved with the Sea Turtle Conservancy logo. The watch comes on a supple teal-blue silicone strap with a titanium folding clasp and a wetsuit extension giving 15mm of on-the-fly adjustment, and a grade 2 titanium bracelet is included in the box with quick-release pins for easy swapping.

The DS Super PH2000M STC is limited to 1,959 pieces, tied to that 1959 founding year of the STC and the introduction of Certina’s Double Security system. Price is set at CHF 1,235. See more on the Certina website.

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NOMOS Shrinks The Ahoi Neomatik Sand And Sky To 36mm And Drops The Date

The original Ahoi Neomatik Sand and Sky models which came out back in 2023 were two summer-friendly colors on what is otherwise the sportiest watch NOMOS makes. The 38.5mm versions were great, if a touch large for some wrists thanks to those long polished lugs every NOMOS carries. Now the brand has scaled the same idea down to 36.3mm and removed the date. This is really, really good.

The case stays faithful to the Ahoi formula, a sportier case that resembles the Tangente, but with a screw-down crown, integrated crown guards, and the red crown-stem insert that warns you when it isn't sealed. The 36.3mm width is paired with a fantastic 9mm thickness, which is quite impressive when you consider 200 meters of water resistance. On top is a domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on both side, and you can choose a solid steel caseback or a sapphire display version.

The Sand model gets a warm, lightly textured beige dial; while the Sky version a light blue one. Both have white Super-LumiNova markers, rhodium-plated luminous hands, and an orange seconds hand in the recessed subdial at 6 o'clock, for a bit of fun. Losing the date window that used to sit at 3 o'clock makes the dials look so much better.

Inside is the in-house DUW 3001, NOMOS' thin automatic at 3.2mm tall, running the brand's Swing System escapement at 3Hz (21,600vph) with a 43-hour power reserve. Through the sapphire back you get the Glashütte finishing NOMOS is known for, with ribbing, perlage, blued screws, and the three-quarter plate. The watches come on waterproof woven textile straps, light grey for the Sand and blue-black for the Sky, on a pin buckle, with a steel bracelet available as an option.

The NOMOS Ahoi Neomatik Sand and Ahoi Neomatik Sky 36 are part of the permanent collection, priced at €3,560. See more on the NOMOS website.

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Beaucroft Bridges The Gap Between Dress And Daily With The New Arc Collection

British independent watchmaking is having a moment right now, and Beaucroft has been one of the more interesting names to follow along with. The Arc is a new line built on the bones of the Seeker, the watch that gave the brand its flowing case-and-dial language in the first place. This time the goal is less dress watch, more everyday companion, and the arched mid-case takes its name from the Bridge of Sighs over the River Cam in Cambridge, where Beaucroft is based.

The 316L stainless steel case measures 38mm wide, a single millimeter up from the Seeker. That extra room gets you a broader bezel and more pronounced lugs. Lug-to-lug stays compact at 43.5mm and the case is just 10.3mm thick, so wearability never suffers. The polished bezel gets a scratch-resistant coating rated at 1,200 to 1,300 Vickers, and the lug spacing widens to 20mm. Water resistance also doubles from the Seeker to 100 meters.

There are four dials: teal, denim blue, olive green, and burnt orange. All use a two-layer build with a textured center against a sunray minute track, plus a soft gradient running from darker edges to a lighter middle. Markers at 12, 3, 6, and 9 keep their teardrop shape. The seconds hand still hides its lume on the counterbalance.

Inside is the Miyota 9039, automatic with hacking and hand-winding, beating at 4Hz, with a 42-hour power reserve. Beaucroft regulates each one in Cambridge to within ±10 seconds per day. Strap options include Delugs Epsom leather in taupe, cream, and black, a gray nubuck, or the brand's Milanese mesh.

The new Beaucroft Arc is priced £525. See more on the Beaucroft website.

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The DUG Glashütte Purist Typ 2 California Is A Very, Very Interesting Proposal

Glashütte tends to mean one of two things: prices creep up to the five figures, or a great heritage. DUG Glashütte, founded by Toni Brodführer and only a year into its life, is trying for something else. The brand builds to the Glashütte/SA standard, which demands at least half a watch's value be created locally and key assembly steps happen in the region, then prices the result like a microbrand rather than a Glashütte institution. The Purist Typ 2 California is the most characterful face in a lineup that already had my attention.

The case is shared across the whole Purist range, and it's a good one. Stainless steel, 40mm wide, 10.95mm thick, and a lug-to-lug of 47.5mm that’s maybe just a hair too long. But nothing egregious. You get sapphire crystals on top and bottom, and on the side is a diamond-shaped crown signed by DUG. The finishing alternates brushed and polished surfaces with sharp transitions between them. Water resistance is decent at 100 meters.

The California dial is perhaps my favorite. It gets a very roughly textured anthracite base, with applied numerals, Roman on the top half of the dial and Arabic on the bottom. It’s fully surrounded by a very sharply sloped white flange that holds the minute markings.

Inside is the Calibre DUG 400, a Sellita SW400 reworked by Malon. Each movement is taken apart, finished by hand, and reassembled in Glashütte to meet the Saxony requirement, then regulated to +2 seconds per day. It runs at 4Hz with 40 hours of power reserve. Finishing includes perlage, blued screws, and an openworked 24k-gold-plated rotor made in-house, all visible through the caseback. You choose between a black textile or a steel bracelet, the latter a €100 premium.

The Purist Typ 2 California is priced at €1.249 on the strap for me, but I believe this is with my high VAT included. See more on the DUG Glashütte website.

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H. Moser & Cie Goes Full Summer With the Pioneer Centre Seconds Sun Berry

H. Moser & Cie has spent years proving that a watch with no numerals and no branding on the dial can still be one of the most recognizable things on a wrist, and they’re really good at it. Especially on their Pioneer Centre Seconds. Launched in 2015 as the brand's everyday option, the Pioneer keeps Moser's minimalism but adds a tougher case and more water resistance. For summer 2026 it gets a combination of yellow and deep berry purple, and it looks fantastic.

The case is 40mm wide and 12.3mm thick with the domed sapphire crystal, dropping to 10.4mm without it, on a very wearable lug-to-lug of 48.1mm. The sides are hollowed, ribbed recesses that slope toward short blocky lugs, machined and hand-finished darker for contrast against the polished flanks. The top of the middle case gets a vertical brushed finish that runs into a mirror-polished bezel, and the screw-down crown with the raised "M" gives you 120 meters of water resistance.

Colorful fumé dials are Moser's signature, and this one is among the bolder and better ones they've done. The background is a rich berry with a sunburst finish, ringed by sunshine yellow on the periphery and carried through to the leaf-shaped hour and minute hands. The yellow Super-LumiNova means those accents stay lit after dark. Since this is a Concept dial there are no markers and no logo, just three central hands.

Inside is the automatic HMC 201, visible through a four-screw exhibition caseback. The skeletonized rotor opens up the view to the barrel, gear train and balance, with anthracite-coated plates and bridges and Moser's double-stripe finishing. It runs at 3Hz with a 72-hour power reserve. A yellow rubber strap and a steel pin buckle complete the summer brief.

The Pioneer Centre Seconds Sun Berry retails for CHF 18,300. See more on the Moser website.

⏲️End links

A bunch of links that might or might not have something to do with watches. One thing’s for sure - they’re interesting

• In her new book Little Blue Dot: How GPS Shaped the Modern World, Katherine Dunn traces how GPS evolved from military technology into a daily necessity. In this excerpt at The Walrus, Dunn recounts when Todd Humphreys, a satellite navigation researcher, built a GPS spoofer in his Bay Area apartment—and watched his iPhone’s blue dot “race off down his street.” That experiment eventually led Humphreys to a bigger test at sea: spoofing an $80 million superyacht on the Mediterranean.

• Since 2023, disgraced crypto founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been incarcerated; first in Brooklyn, then in two federal prisons in California as part of a 25-year sentence for fraud and conspiracy. Throughout, he has maintained his innocence. He has also, in his way, adapted to life on the inside. This is the fascinating core of Simon van Zuylen-Wood’s feature, which draws on countless conversations with the man corrections officers call “Bankman,” as well as a litany of his past and present fellow inmates. You may have read prison narratives before, but I’d bet few of them involved this much pickleball.

• When everything is a market, anyone can be an insider. After watching her composer husband’s work become fodder for bets on a popular prediction market, Carrie Sun, an “MIT math nerd” and hedge-fund alumnus, decides to put a bit of her own money to work, placing wagers on Love Is Blind weddings, the Rotten Tomatoes score for Project Hail Mary, and whether former Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell would say “stagflation” in a press conference. The chief thrill, here, is watching Sun pit her own natural, human desire for drama against the insider knowledge she reveals, time and again, operating just out of plain sight.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

I’m looking at cheap dive watches, so this is a very relevant video for me.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk