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Spinnaker put a Drew Brophy surf painting on a 43mm diver and sold all 500

Spinnaker put Drew Brophy's Surfer's Journey on a 43mm diver, made 500 of them, and the lot sold out at 395 US dollars.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 2 min read · 11 August 2026

Spinnaker Fleuss Solar Wave dial and orange bezel, painted in blues and oranges by Drew Brophy — Spinnaker

The painting is on the box as well. Not a logo stamped into cardboard, the actual artwork running across the packaging, which is more than you get from plenty of watches costing four times as much. Inside it is the Spinnaker Solar Wave, reference SP-5180-01, a 43mm steel diver with a Drew Brophy painting on the dial and the bezel.

Spinnaker made 500 of them, priced them at 395 US dollars and put them on sale on 7 August. They are already showing as sold out.

Spinnaker Fleuss Solar Wave on its orange rubber strap, three-quarter view — Spinnaker

Surfer's Journey, shrunk to 43 millimetres

Brophy paints surfboards in Southern California, and he paints them loud. High contrast, big colour, waves that look like they were drawn by someone who has copped a beating from one. Spinnaker says the dial and bezel come from his Surfer's Journey, which started life as a big canvas in his studio, and that the blues and oranges are meant to read as sunrise and sunset over the ocean.

Normally I skim straight past a line like that. Here the watch backs it up. The dial is a proper mess of colour, blues pooling towards the centre, the warm tones breaking across the top the way light actually does. Nobody has tried to make it tasteful, and thank god, because a muted Drew Brophy would be a waste of everyone's time.

The Miyota 8215 is where the money was saved

Inside is the Miyota 8215 automatic. Miyota lists it at 21,600 vibrations an hour, 21 jewels, about 42 hours of power and an accuracy spread of minus 20 to plus 40 seconds a day. That last figure is wide. A well-regulated one will do a lot better, but that is the number the maker prints, so expect to nudge it back into line now and then. It does hack, so you can at least set it properly.

On a watch you are buying for the dial, that is exactly the corner I would want cut. Give me the crystal and the artwork, and I will reset the thing on a Sunday.

The Solar Wave box set with Drew Brophy artwork printed across the packaging — Spinnaker

43mm across, 51mm lug to lug

The rest is more generous than the price suggests. Stainless steel case, 43mm across, 12.8mm thick, 51mm from lug to lug, with a screw-down crown and a sapphire crystal. Water resistance is 15 ATM, so 150 metres, genuinely enough to swim and snorkel with. The indices are applied and filled with Swiss Super-LumiNova. It weighs 100 grams and comes on a 22mm orange rubber strap.

That is a lot of watch, and it has been decorated to be looked at, so it is not going to hide under a cuff. By my reckoning, anything under about 17cm of wrist and the lugs start hanging over the edge.

Chasing one of the 500

395 dollars for sapphire, 150 metres and a dial lifted straight off a real painting is good value, and 500 pieces is not many, so the sell-out is no great shock. No Australian price ever went up, and now that Spinnaker's own store has run dry that's a bit academic anyway. A dealer with one left is the only realistic shot.