I’d be hard-pressed to name a watch more iterated upon in the last few years than Zodiac’s Sea Wolf. The retro-inspired diver has been at the heart of a true brand renaissance and was at the forefront of the vintage revival movement that has so characterized the watch world over the last decade. Today, Zodiac is looking back to one of its earliest dive watches with the new Zodiac Super Sea Wolf Ref. 691.

There is, as with most things watch-related and pre-internet, some debate as to the initial launch date of the Zodiac Sea Wolf, but regardless of the date, there’s no doubt that Zodiac released the Sea Wolf as part of the first wave of dive watches back in the 1950s, but while watches like the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, Rolex Submariner, and Omega Seamaster 300 soared (or dove), the Sea Wolf fell into the background — obscured to all but the most devoted watch enthusiasts alongside other early generation dive watches like the Eterna Kon-Tiki and Enicar Sherpa-Dive.

By the time I got into watches in the early 2010s, the Zodiac Sea Wolf was one of the great secrets of the enthusiast world. Great examples could be had for a few hundred bucks, so for not much money, you could have a great-looking vintage dive watch with some real history.

That all started to change when Zodiac, under the larger umbrella of Fossil Group, revived the Sea Wolf in 2015. The Zodiac Sea Wolf was immediately brought to the center of the horological world and has continued to stay relevant in the near decade since. In that time, we’ve seen Zodiac push the Sea Wolf in new and interesting directions, experimenting with materials, colors, and complications to develop the line into a truly modern offering.

This latest Sea Wolf eschews all that, stripping it down to its core and introducing what just may be the most vintage-inspired take on the Sea Wolf yet. With a hand-wound mechanical movement, 36mm case, and throwback looks, the new Zodiac Sea Wolf draws from the very first Zodiac diver, the Ref. 691, and it’s all the better for it.

In anticipation of its release, I spent a few days with the new Super Sea Wolf Ref. 691. I’ve never quite gotten on with Zodiac’s contemporary offerings. They’re wonderful watches, to be sure, but they’ve tended to lack a bit of the soul inherent to their vintage counterparts. Not so here. I’m not sure whether it’s the small case, the clean dial with its dramatically mid-century dial furniture, or the slight absurdity of a hand-wound dive watch, but the Super Sea Wolf Ref. 691 is a watch replete with character, and one that stands out from the rest of the Zodiac lineup by simply doing less.

The new Super Sea Wolf Ref. 691 comes powered by a brand new movement from Swiss Technology Production (or STP), Fossil Group’s in-house Swiss movement developer and manufacturer. The STP 1-21M movement is a manual-wound version of the STP 1-21 automatic movement used across the Zodiac lineup and is an evolution of the STP 1-11 movement, which is itself an STP clone of the ETA 2824.

I can already hear you screaming at your screens as you read this — why would you put a hand-wound mechanical movement in a dive watch with a screw-down crown? I get it, and I would certainly be hesitant to recommend this watch to someone for whom it would serve as their only watch (constant screwing and unscrewing of a crown is going to slightly accelerate wear). But the reality is many early skin divers had hand-wound movements, and the thinness and proportionality that come with the new hand-wound caliber is worth the trade-off.

And I mean it. The Ref. 691 wears like a dream. Thin and compact with a case measuring 36mm across with a 37mm bezel, 12mm thick, and 44mm lug-to-lug, the latest addition to the Super Sea Wolf lineup does sort of make you wonder why dive watches ever had to get bigger. Wearing a watch this small and this capable is an experience far removed from many of the over-spec’d and oversized dive watches of recent years. I wear dive watches most days — a rotating timing bezel, whether count-up or count-down, is just about as useful a feature as a watch can have — and having all the functionality I’m used to in a small and comfortable package was a pleasant change of pace, made better by some of the small quality of life improvements that Zenith has made to bring the Ref. 691 into the 21st century.

The biggest change from the earliest Super Sea-Wolf Ref. 691 comes in the form of a bracelet. Namely, there is one. Early Zodiac dive watches came on crocodile leather straps. While this was reasonable at the time, I think we can all agree that a bracelet is a noted improvement. Here, Zodiac has opted for a simple tapered three-link bracelet with a butterfly clasp and a little bit of stretch. Once sized right (a slight pain, as always I’d love to see single-sided screws over the included pin and collar system), the bracelet is comfortable and the stretch links keep the watch from feeling either too tight or too loose as I moved through my day.

It’s worth noting that Zodiac has created two versions of the Ref. 691. The first of these (which I had a pre-release sample of) features a black dial with silver dial furniture, as well as a three-link rivet-style bracelet. Zodiac has also produced what they call an “alternative style” in partnership with Craft + Tailored, which swaps the black for a lovely cream dial with gold accents, and includes a rivet-less three-link bracelet.

At the end of the day, the Zodiac Super Sea-Wolf Ref. 691 will not be for everyone, but for anyone looking to pick up a high quality, truly vintage-feeling dive watch with proper vintage sizing, it’s hard to imagine you’ll do much better than this.

The Zodiac Super Sea-Wolf Ref. 691 is available today for $1,695, with the black-dialed ZO0001 available through Zodiac’s website, and the cream-dialed ZO0002 exclusively available through Craft + Tailored. Zodiac