Few watches offer as high a depth rating for as low an outlay as the Christopher Ward Trident range, says Chris Hall.
On my desk, I have a Christopher Ward Trident Pro 600 dive watch. The third generation of the Trident family, it is relatively unremarkable as an object – 40mm from one side to the other, with a rubber strap and thick bezel both in functional, high-contrast black to match the dial.
The “600” refers to its depth rating in metres, and that is what I’m currently contemplating with no small sense of wonder. It’s not the first watch to cross my desk that can make such a claim, and indeed there are watches whose construction will allow them to withstand much greater pressures – the likes of Rolex, IWC and Hublot have all built deep-sea monsters capable of surviving at 4,000 metres.
But, still, just consider it for a moment. Six hundred metres under water is, to put it mildly, a long way down. What this watch is telling me is that if, all of a sudden (perhaps as the premise of an epic-scale blockbuster), my office block were to be ripped from its foundations and plunged headlong into the Atlantic, sinking deep into the Mesopelagic zone, past the sunlight’s penetration into the territory of giant squid, luminous jellyfish and who knows what else; if that were to happen, pot plants and desks and laptops and posters – and, unfortunately for us, several hundred people, as well as a branch of the Lego store – all terrifyingly submerged into the mighty deep, the only thing likely still to be capable of doing its job properly is this watch. (And perhaps some Lego bricks, but let’s be fair, their job is somewhat simpler.) It is in every sense a totally unfathomable proposition.
Overengineering, you may call it. For what do I need a watch that can brush off a stroll along the bottom of the English Channel (175 metres deep, in case you’re wondering)? Deep-dive watches were invented in the sixties and seventies to cater to the needs of professionals, but even from day one they have been about more than that. You don’t build a global luxury powerhouse on the strength of the few hundred or so individuals paid to tinker with oil rigs.
Those with the buying power want extremely capable tools, of course, but I’m still impressed by the enduring success of the dive watch. When Christopher Ward set up his eponymous brand in 2004, one of the first models he introduced was a diver (it became the Trident in 2009), not because the world needed another dive watch, but because this is the most resilient currency of the watch fan.
And while this may reduce the intricacies of product development, design, sales and marketing strategies just a tiny smidgen, it’s true to say that the quality of a brand’s core dive watch is a reliable barometer for the strength of the brand itself. A lot of watch specs are somewhat arcane, but a depth rating of 100 metres or more: that’s something honest and fundamental.
Over time, in fact, the Trident has improved doggedly, constantly, inexorably. A decade after its introduction, we are now looking at version three, and by any yardstick it is an extremely capable tool indeed. The bezel is ceramic-filled, for superb resistance to damage; the movement a perfectly reliable and easily serviced Sellita SW-200. The design continues to improve, with a new set of sharp hands and detailed, bevelled hour markers. The build quality, too, is impressive – you can confidently set the £695 Trident Pro 600 side-by-side with watches costing several times as much.
Perhaps in doing so you highlight the brand’s only real drawback – a sense that it is still yet to develop a character, a flair, a distinct personality that it can truly call its own. But it will come in time, and it is fair to observe that the vast majority of its rivals in the same price bracket are not overly blessed with charisma themselves.
The more salient point is that to find another 600-metre dive watch you have to reach deeper into your pocket. The “value proposition”, as watch nerds call it, doesn’t stop there, either – alongside the Pro 600, Christopher Ward is launching a new GMT model (£895) and a limited-edition 1,000-metre rated “Elite” in jazzy blue and orange (£1,250). Never mind giant squid – here we’ve got a watch that will go deeper than its nuclear submarine namesake.
