If you’re familiar with U-Boat, you’ll know they’re no strangers to pushing the limits of watch design. Their misplaced, left-hand side crowns, oil-immersed movements and chunky case sizes are three obvious design traits found in so many of their timepieces. For 2023, the Italian watchmaker takes things even further, launching one of their largest watches yet: the U-Boat Capsoil Doppiotempo XXL.
The U-Boat Capsoil Doppiotempo XXL - Credit U-Boat
I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Italo Fontana, founder of U-Boat, but he’s someone I’d love to talk with. I imagine he’s not someone that takes life too seriously, especially when it comes to watchmaking. It’s clear he aims far outside the norm and happily pushes the boundaries of design and technology. In 2009, he famously created one of the largest watches ever with the 65mm wide U-1942. Sounds unwearable? To most people, yes. To Arnold Schwarzenegger? Apparently not.
The U-Boat Capsoil Doppiotempo XXL - Credit U-Boat
Sure, watches like this are over the top, but that’s U-Boat. They are happy to be controversial and they aren’t aiming to be to everyone’s taste. Instead, they want to find those eccentric watch wearers that don’t care about big name brands but unconventional, well-executed timepieces. If that sounds like you, and you’re someone with a wrist close in size to the Terminator, you might enjoy their latest release, the U-Boat Capsoil Doppiotempo XXL.
The U-Boat Capsoil Doppiotempo XXL - Credit U-Boat
The new U-Boat Capsoil Doppiotempo XXL combines two of the brand’s collections into one. The U-Boat Doppiotempo, translating to “double time” in Italian, was originally launched in 1938 for the Italian army’s parachute assault regiment, the Col Moschin. It has since offered classic dual-time functionality for frequent globetrotters. Rather differently, the U-Boat Capsoil is an extremely modern watch which famously immerses both the movement and dial in an oil bath. It literally has oil floating around inside the dial, giving it an ink-black colouring and a strange three-dimensional finish inclusive of a wandering compensation bubble.
The U-Boat Capsoil Doppiotempo XXL - Credit U-Boat
After the success of the 45mm-wide U-Boat Capsoil Doppiotempo watches launched earlier this year, Italo Fontana once again decided to take things further by launching an XXL edition with a 55mm wide case. As you can imagine, the three-dimensional effect of the oil-bathed dial is even more pronounced and there’s no chance legibility of the GMT function will ever become an issue. This is a really large watch suited to only big wrists.
The U-Boat Capsoil Doppiotempo XXL - Credit U-Boat
There are three new U-Boat Capsoil Doppiotempo XXL watches, two in 316L stainless steel and a second with a DLC-treated black case. All three have dual crowns on the left side, one for setting the time and the other for displaying the second time zone. They have domed sapphire crystal glass for protection of the jet black oil-immersed dials with rotating inner bezels, indices, numbers and the dual-time hand in red or green. The rest of the beige-coloured hardware is adorned in Superluminova.
The U-Boat Capsoil Doppiotempo XXL - Credit U-Boat
On the case back of the U-Boat Capsoil Doppiotempo XXL, there is an innovative Locking Ring System and a patented screw closure for quick battery replacement of the Swiss Ronda 712.6 quartz movement. The back also presents a laser-engraved QR code which gives you access to an exclusive digital experience reserved only for the owners of this timepiece. The watches come with a handcrafted black leather strap plus an additional black vulcanized rubber strap.
The U-Boat Capsoil Doppiotempo XXL - Credit U-Boat
There’s no doubt about it, the U-Boat Capsoil Doppiotempo XXL is not for everyone. In fact, it’s target audience is very small and there’s not many people that come to mind who would or could wear this timepiece. That being said, I will always applaud watch brands for being creative and that’s certainly what U-Boat is best known for.
I’m so interested to know though, are there any Watch Gecko Magazine readers out there that would wear this watch? Please let me know in the comments below!
Technical Specifications:
- Brand: U-Boat
- Model: Capsoil Doppiotempo XXL
- Price: £2,700 (Steel), £2,800 (Black PVD)
- Material: Stainless steel, with or without black PVD
- Movement: Swiss Ronda 712.6 quartz
- Complications: Hours, minutes, seconds, GMT
- Dial: Oil-immersed dial with red or green numbers, indexes and GMT hand. Superluminova numerals and hour and minute hands.
- Size: 55mm
