Living With The Squale Master Grand Vert

Ok so it's been just over a year since we put up our last article. Starting out 2025, I wrote an article promising that we would try to average one new article a week. Well, obviously that didn't happen. Hourstriker was firmly in the growing stages the first two years of the site's existence. During that time we were forming strong relationships with brands and were lucky enough to have many brands send us watches to review.

Since I'm the only reviewer, it means that it is very easy to get overwhelmed with watches to review. With our reviews coming out to anywhere from 3,000 to 9,000 words, you can imagine how much time they take to write, proofread and shoot images and video for. That has pretty much limited me to two reviews a week, being posted on Tuesday and Friday. Wednesday is normally reserved for writing articles and whatever other miscellaneous tasks I need to get completed.

I'll let you in on a little bit of a secret; recently we've been working on something big. The version of Hourstriker you're reading right now is just the "Get something up!" version my wife told me to make. She thought, and was correct, that we just needed to get something up and running and focus on content and traffic at first. Now that we're getting great steadily growing traffic to the site and have two years of solid content, it is now the time to launch the true vision of what Hourstriker was meant to be.



That being said, working on developing the new site takes a ton of time. You might have noticed that we have scaled back to doing just one review a week over the last few weeks. That is because I'm allocating the time I'd use on the second weekly review to work on the new site. Anyway, I feel that now I have a bit of extra time to write an article here and there while working on the new site. So here we go…

For the first article of the year, I thought it would be a good time to look back at the Master Grand Vert from Squale. Squale sent the Master Grand Vert to us review all the way back in November. In total, I had a few weeks with the watch before publishing the review in early December.

Over that short period of time I really fell in love with the watch. Most of the time, when I get really interested in a watch it starts with the brand and its history. For Squale, their history is extremely rich in terms of their significance to the modern dive watch. Water resistance in watches became the most important trait of a watch in the late 1940s and early 1950s. During that time SCUBA systems were being developed that allowed recreational divers to spend much longer underwater than was previously possible.



The biggest issue facing early divers was the need to time a dive. Up until that point, there were some waterproof watches, but they did a poor job of handling anything more than a splash or a dip in the pool. Everyone will remember the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms and Rolex Submariner for being the first commercially available dive watches, but another company was right there with them, Squale. While not known at that time for their watches, Squale was a master manufacture of waterproof watches cases. Brands like Blancpain, DOXA and Heuer even relied on Squale to make cases for their dive watches.

The calling card for a Squale Von Buren case, which was named after their founder, was the crown being set at 4 o'clock. With the clock located at this position, the crown was much more protected from getting snagged or hit on a foreign object. Even today, you see many brands setting the crowns of their dive watches at 4 o'clock to feign the vintage look. It's this heritage in the early days of dive watches that really made me fascinated with the Squale.

When I then look at the catalog of a brand, I'm drawn to the watches that offer the highest tech case material and offer the most capability. In the Squale range, this comes in the form of their Master line. The Squale Master watches swap stainless steel cases for those made out of grade 5 titanium. They also see the water resistance skyrocket to an astounding 1,200 meters. Initially I was drawn to the original Squale Master re-edition with its black sandwich dial filled with old lume, but felt maybe reviewing one of the newer Masters would be more interesting to our readers.



A year after Squale released their original titanium Master, they released a new pair of Masters in the Grand Bleu and Grand Vert. These watches also had titanium cases, but changed out the black sandwich style dial for a blue or teal dial with a 3D wave pattern on them. Of the two, the Grand Vert with its teal dial appealed much more to me, mainly since I can't stand blue on a watch dial. The gradient of the Grand Vert is meant to invoke the colors a diver sees as they ascend from the ocean depths to the sunny surface.

When the watch arrived, I was instantly a huge fan of it. So much so that any lingering doubt of if I should have just reviewed the standard Master flew out of the window. The teal 3D wave pattern dial was just nuts and depending on the light and angle you were looking at the watch, could look like a totally different watch.

Initially I was a little concerned that I would not like the leather effect rubber strap supplied with the newest Master models. In the PR pictures they looked a bit gimmicky, but in person I quite liked the strap. At first the strap was a bit stiff, but after one or two times wearing the watch, it became much suppler. Even the leather look of the strap somehow suited the design of the Master Grand Vert.



During the few weeks I had before putting up the review of the Squale Master Grand Vert, I tried to wear the watch as often as possible. The Master was extremely lightweight and the rubber strap helped keep the watch in place and very comfortable. My one reservation was that the Master Grand Vert was a bit tall. I felt that if the watch was 44 mm, it would wear the 15.6 mm thickness better. When considering the extreme 1,200 meters of water resistance the Master has, it is perfectly acceptable to be as thick as it is though. In the end, I felt the thickness was a bit enduring to the capabilities of the watch, and viewed it as a cautious positive.

In the review, I went on to say that the Squale Master Grand Vert was an exceptional watch and that I was a huge fan of it. Saying that I could easily see it as part of my permanent collection as well as recommending it to other collectors if they were looking for a more interesting yet serious dive watch. Well normally that's where the story would end with me reviewing a watch. Shortly after the review the watch would be packed up and sent back to the brand. Except that didn’t exactly happen with the Master Grand Vert…

I told Tommaso, at Squale, that I was really enjoying the watch and asked if they wouldn't mind if I kept it for a bit longer. I was excited when they said that was fine and have fun with it. Right after I had published the review of the Master Grand Vert, I started to really like the Marine Nationale Parachute style straps that came packaged as a second strap on another watch I had in for review. I had even started moving over personal watches that had straps I wasn't crazy about over to these straps. My mind instantly thought about how the Master Grand Vert would do on this style of strap.



So naturally I ordered a black Marine Nationale Parachute strap for the Master Grand Vert with an orange center highlight that would match the orange minute hand. After swapping the watch over to the new strap, things really changed. One of the main advantages, besides protecting against spring bar failure, of this kind of strap is that it is fully adjustable when sizing. As I've become more used to wearing these straps, I've felt overly annoyed with straps that only allow a set number of pinholes for adjustment. I never thought negatively about the rubber strap the Master Grand Vert came on, but I'd never look back after swapping it to the parachute strap.

The orange highlight on the new strap also complimented the orange minute hand and made the strap look fully cohesive with the Master Grand Vert. I have received a ton of compliments on the pairing over the few months I've been wearing them together. The new combination also lowered the weight of the Master Grand Vert to less than 90 grams, which is feather light for a watch of this size and depth rating. When you also add in that the strap sizing in now endlessly adjustable, the Squale Master Grand Vert has become the ultimate daily wearer.

It has now been three months since we published the review of the Master Grand Vert, and I've done a ton with the watch. I typically end up wearing the watch at least twice a week, just because it's so comfortable on the wrist. If it wasn't for all the other review pieces we have in that need to be worn, the Master Grand Vert would probably get even more wrist time.



I've also had the ability to take the watch into the water when we went on a work / family trip to Dallas recently. Richard Mille and Vacheron Constantin had invited us out to see some of their newest pieces in Dallas and it was a good excuse to take our twins to a resort. Our twin three year old daughters just love the water, so we were in the pools as much as we could be during our stay there. Of course the Squale Master Grand Vert didn't get anywhere near its maximum depth of 1,200 meters, but it had some pretty serious waves and toddler splashing to deal with.

The Master Grand Vert was just perfect in the water and now I really want to take it on some other trips we have planned coming up soon. Up next we have a cruise scheduled after all of the craziness of Watches and Wonders wraps up in April. I think that trip might be a slightly better test of the Master Grand Vert as a vacation watch, with multiple outings into the ocean as well as pools. Being out in the heat and humidity will also easily be dealt with by the super adjustable Marine Nationale Parachute strap.

On a side note, both the people at Richard Mille and Vacheron Constantin loved the Squale Master Grand Vert. Since I don't like to keep track of multiple watches while on vacation, I only took the Master with me. So when I was visiting the other two brands it was on my wrist. Everyone actually asked me to show them what I was wearing and they had all heard of and were impressed by Squale. The Grand Vert treatment on the Master was just the icing on top. It's super refreshing that people at both brands were fans of a watch that retails for $2,650, even more so when I was handling and shooting some watches that went DEEP into the six figure range and one well over a million dollars.



Besides going out of town with us, the Master Grand Vert has just been the ideal wrist companion. I have a decent sized collection of watches, including three of my all time grails, and the Master is probably in the top two or three pieces I'd grab out of the safe when heading out. I can't think of a situation where the watch hasn't been a great fit or I wished I was wearing something else. We do have a very laid back lifestyle, so I never found myself in a formal situation wearing it. That's one place where the Master Grand Vert might not fit in best… but on the leather style rubber strap, it might get a pass.

The Squale Master Grand Vert is really one of those watches where I find myself liking it more, the more I spend time with it. If I was excited about the watch after I reviewed it, I'm ecstatic about it three months later. I now stand even more firmly about my recommendation of it that I gave at the end of my review. Who knows, maybe Squale will let me keep it for a little bit longer before asking for it back!

I'm sorry it has been so long since I put up our last article and hopefully I can be a little bit better about that moving forward. I have another short article that I plan on putting up in the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for that. Also with the new website design being launched sooner than later, there will be a change up in our articles, which means a lot more articles to look forward to, but I'll leave that as a bit of a teaser.

For more information about the Master Grand Vert please visit : Squale

Technical Specifications

Reference Number: MASTIBKGR.RAL

Retail Price: $2,650

Case Size: 40 mm (Case Diameter) / 41.6 mm (Bezel Overhang)

Lug to Lug: 49 mm

Thickness: 15.6 mm

Weight: 91 grams

Case Material: Grade 5 Titanium

Bezel: 120 Click Unidirection with Ceramic Insert

Strap: Black Rubber with a Titanium Pin Buckle

Movement: Swiss Made Sellita SW200-1 Automatic

Functions: Hours, Minutes, Seconds and Date

Power Reserve: 42 Hours

Water Resistance: 1,200 Meters