Jisa Shaji
Two manta rays mid-dance, hand-painted onto a 40mm diver’s dial.
Manta rays are the largest rays in the ocean, with a span reaching seven meters. Their name comes from the Spanish word for blanket, which makes sense the moment you see one move. They are filter feeders, harmless, and curious enough to swim over and take a look at you.
Divers who meet one tend to still be talking about it years later. That is the encounter our artists put on this dial, and it is why this watch lands when it does, a day past World Manta Ray Day.
The Dance We Painted
There are two rays on the dial, not one, set at different depths and caught at the point in the turn where the next wingbeat is coming. One animal would have been a portrait. Two of them are doing something together, and that is what the eye reads as movement.
Sunlight comes down from the top of the dial in long columns, so you know where the surface is and roughly how far under it you are. At the bottom, a coral reef in orange and red and yellow sits on pale sand.
Here is the detail worth knowing. Every manta ray carries a pattern of dark spots on its underside, and no two individuals share the same one. Researchers identify them the way you would identify a person from a fingerprint. Our dials work the same way for a less scientific reason. They are painted one at a time by hand, so the brushwork lands differently on each and the rays end up turning at slightly different angles from one watch to the next.
After Dark
The applied indices and hands carry Swiss Super-LumiNova. When the light drops they come up green over a scene you can no longer quite make out, which is close to what the real thing looks like at depth once you switch a torch off.
The Watch Underneath
Spinnaker have been building dive watches for years, with an identity rooted in underwater exploration, so the Spence 300 was a natural place to put this.
It is a 40mm stainless steel case, 11.5mm thick, sealed to 300 meters behind a screw down crown and a screw back. Inside is the Japanese Miyota 9039 automatic, running three hands and no date. That matters more than usual here, because a date window would have cut a hole through the reef. Over the top sits an anti reflection coated sapphire lens, so the painting reads from any angle, and the bezel turns one way only, as a dive bezel should. It comes on a 20mm steel bracelet with a fold over buckle.
The Spinnaker Spence Underwater Dancers is available now at iflwatches.com, priced at $950 USD. Limited to 100 pieces worldwide. The first 100 pieces ship from launch, and a made to order second batch opens on September 21 for delivery in May 2027, going ahead only if it reaches 100 orders.
Technical Specifications
- Case: 40mm stainless steel, 11.5mm thick
- Movement: Japanese Miyota 9039 automatic, 24 jewels, 28,800 vph, 42 hour power reserve
- Functions: three hands, no date
- Water resistance: 300 meters (30 ATM)
- Crown: screw down, with screw back construction
- Crystal: anti reflection coated sapphire lens
- Bezel: unidirectional turning
- Lume: Swiss Super-LumiNova on the applied indices
- Bracelet: 20mm stainless steel with a fold over buckle and push button
- Lug to lug: 48mm
- Weight: 100 grams
- Dial: hand-painted, created exclusively for IFL Watches
- Reference: SP-5191-11
