From Croatia to South Africa

The U2 embarks on a very special journey

Many of our customers intend to use their watches while traveling or playing sports. That’s why they often choose a robust diving watch. One such customer is Jörg Knillmann, whose leisure activities include sports that place great demands on his watch – such as diving, skiing, motorcycle driving, mountaineering and mountain biking. He chose a U2 as his watch not just because he likes the way it looks, but because its technical features make it a “professional instrument” that is extremely robust and reliable. This article relates some of his experiences with the U2 during his travels to many different countries.

“Right after I bought it, I put the U2 to the test on a two-week diving trip to the islands of southern Croatia. I immediately found the expandable silicon strap with its over-the-clothing extension very practical. It kept my U2 from slipping when I wore it over my seven-millimeter-thick neoprene wetsuit. I also had no problems setting diving times before going into the water. Even when the watch was wet and I was wearing neoprene gloves, it was easy to operate the diver’s bezel and set precise times. The brightly glowing hands of the watch were easy to recognize under water. Even when I was exploring caves and diving at depths of more than 40 meters, the hands glowed brightly and were easily readable. Diving watches are subjected to a lot of abuse, and my U2 was no exception. It often banged against the boat, my equipment, rocks and cave walls – and neither the case nor the crystal ever showed any scratches.

My next trip was to Dubai, where I wore the U2 while wreck diving and on desert excursions. The water in the Gulf of Arabia has a very high concentration of salt, and I had no opportunity to rinse off the watch with fresh water between dives. But that had no effect at all on the case, since it’s made of submarine steel. As usual when diving, the watch suffered a few blows, but they were nothing the U2 couldn’t handle. And once again, readability under water was excellent in spite of unfavorable conditions. In the desert, the watch was exposed to temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius, dust, sand, shocks and vibrations – and survived them all unscathed.

The climax was a 5,500-kilometer trip across South Africa, from Johannesburg to Cape Town. During my safaris in the national parks, the U2 was my constant companion. Because I spent days driving on gravel roads, it was subjected to permanent vibration, but with no detrimental effects. The heat – often more than 40 degrees Celsius – and high humidity also had no noticeable effect on the accuracy of the movement.

And that’s not all. I also wore the U2 in the Indian and Atlantic oceans. In the Atlantic ocean it was subjected to sudden temperature changes. On the boat the temperature was 35 degrees Celsius, but the water temperature was never more than 15 degrees Celsius – and yet the crystal didn’t fog up. I suppose it’s superfluous to mention that here too, the U2 survived numerous impacts without a problem.

Of course, I also wore the U2 on my wrist during my expeditions in the Drakensberg and Swartberg mountains, where it had to deal with perspiration and dust as well as the vibrations caused by driving on gravel roads and mountain passes.

After all this stress and strain, I can confirm that the U2 is a very robust watch that actually lives up to the promises made in the SINN advertisements.”