Sherpa x TRTS OPS

The Sherpa x TRTS OPS is the rebirth of a legendary military style dive watch from the 1960swith a brand new surface finish in collaboration with TRTS (The Real Time Show), an industry insider and in-depth podcast championed by Alon Ben Joseph and Rob Nudds.

Once made by the late Enicar SA in Lengnau, the amazing history of the Sherpa series was never picked up again ever since. It has a timeless and elegant design featuring an internal dive bezel operated by the second crown at 2 o’ clock.

The first watch to revive the complete COMPRESSOR water resistance technology - crowns and case back

Like its sibling the Sherpa Ultradive and Sherpa OPS, the Sherpa x TRTS OPS is a real compressor dive watch featuring a compressor bayonet case-back first pioneered in the 1950s by the ingenious case maker EPSA, Ervin Piquerez from Bassecourt. The new Sherpa x TRTS OPS revives EPSA's patented, non-screw down crowns, which also use the amazing compressor principle:

The more your dive down, the higher the water pressure. The more water pressure, the more it presses the case back into the case and against the gasket, increasing the sealing pressure of the gasket. The same principle applies to the unique gasket within the crown: It is pressed tighter onto the tube the more the water pressure rises and is made of a special polymer usually not used in the watch industry. The crowns do not have to be screwed down, yet are highly water resistant.

The compressor system enables longer lasting gaskets, which normally tend to fade with long lasting constant high pressure (as witnessed in a screw in case back) by applying less pressure on the gaskets in day by day usage.

Sherpa Watches took up this ingenious Swiss invention from the 1950s and revived it in their TRTSOPS model. Sherpa models are the only complete compressor watches on the market.

The EPSA-STOP bayonet compressor case back and the MONOFLEX compressor crowns are unique to Sherpa Watches. The crowns are even assembled in-house by ourselves according to old plans, but modernised in design and materials. For this, our CEO had to deep-dive into Swiss Archives in the Jura. He is proud to revive the forgotten EPSA heritage and these watches are a homage to this ingenious Juracienne company, shown in the beautifully engraved EPSA dive helmet on the case back.

This system works very well and enabled the ISO 6425 certification (4.7.4 and 4.7.10) to 200m.

The only watch with a „spiritual complication“ - Tibetan buddhist prayer wheels in the Mantramatic movement

Sherpa Watches uses the „Sherpa“ name with pride, which was put for the first time in 1956 onto a watch. To give something back to the Sherpa people, we wanted to include something inside the movement which has a close relation to the Sherpa people of Nepal.

The Sherpas are a Tibetan minority in Nepal and adhere to the Tibetan Buddhist religion. Our CEO Martin Klocke shares this spirituality with them and developed a special Tibetan Buddhist feature inside of the movement:

The seconds wheel and the escape wheel are both micro laser engraved with Tibetan Buddhist mantras, according to the tradition in the Himalayas. The plans were made with the help of the highly renown Buddhist meditation master Sherab Gyaltsen Rinpoche to make sure they are 100% correct. It may be the smallest engraved mantra in the world: 1mm long and 0.15mm high, the mantra „OM MANI PEME HUNG“ is engraved many times in both wheels. Per rotation it spreads its good vibration into the world, more than 30 Mio times per year, roughly one per second. It is the first time that a watch movement is transcended from a pure machine into a spiritual instrument: Your watch sends out good wishes and vibrations into the world constantly, for all sentient beings.

Giving back to the Sherpa people

We also decided to give back to Sherpa people in Nepal, so we support two foundations in the Sherpa regions: One is collecting waste around the Sagarmatha National park and recycles it, the other is rebuilding and running a school in the countryside, to give children a brighter future.

Unique design featuring a special Sherpa Orange Swiss Super-LumiNova X1

The Sherpa TRTS OPS features a timeless design with internal dive bezel, a slightly domed dial with large printed lume indices which form a rhombus at night. The hour and minute hands are facetted with satin finish. The seconds hand is a speedometer needle design which is completely spray coated from all visible sides in a special orange lume. The Swiss made domed sapphire box glass adds to the superb vintage yet timeless look.

For the dive bezel and the seconds hand a specially developed Sherpa Orange Swiss Super-LuminovaX1 was developed with RC Tritec in Teufen. It is a mixture between dayglo and lume - resulting in a bright orange at day and orange luminous at night.

To counter an often seen whitish glow around the rim of the sapphire box glass, the Swiss partners Sebal and Econorm create a superbly finished and highly domed box glass with black metallisation on the bottom to catch unwanted reflexions.

The stainless steel case is bead blasted, without coating of any kind. The delicate satin blasted finish give the watch its perfect blend between rugged military style yet refined subdued sheen of nearly ethereal quality. The case back, which always locks into the same position, shows a beautiful classic dive helmet, the former symbol of EPSA.

All components are made in Germany and Switzerland, thus helping to sustain the know-how here in Europe, and enabling a sustainable European watch business for the future. Sustainability has many facets.

Discreet TRTS marking

As the OPS already has very balanced and refined design, Sherpa and TRTS (The Real Time Show) did not want to overload it with a collaboration marking. This is why both chose to secretly engrave the TRTS scripture into the beautifully engraved diver chestplate on the case back. Originally serving as the proper company logo of EPSA, it is now featured as a reverence to the ingenious yet not so well known Swiss watch case maker. At the same time, combined with the TRTS moniker it refers to the inquisitive and in-depth nature of the TRTS podcast and also Sherpa’s mission in recreating these models and technologies.

For transparency, the partners and suppliers are named on our website

All our suppliers are listed on our website to show that we really care for “made in Europe”, as they are all located in Germany and Switzerland, and really produce here. For us at Sherpa, this is an important aspect of our European heritage and also vital for sustainability: In a world where nearlyeverything is outsourced to Asia it is important to keep the know how in Europe and cooperate with high tech family owned businesses.

About Sherpa Watches

Sherpa Watches is a young and small independent watch brand from Meerbusch close to Düsseldorf in Germany. It was started by CEO Martin Klocke in 2019 out of passion and is dedicated to bringing back the Sherpa line of watches, in the best form possible. All watches have "The heart that ticks".