CWC and TGN Join Forces to Create The Coolest Dive Watch of the Year So Far
Teased during their most recent episode of The Grey Nato Podcast, it has now been revealed via instagram posts that hosts Jason Heaton and James Stacey teamed up with none other than CWC to create a run of limited edition watches made only for their paying subscribers. This watch is definitely one of the coolest dive watches I’ve ever seen, so in this blog post I will outline the connection between TGN and CWC, where I think inspiration for their design came from, and what we might expect from CWC in the future following this collaboration.
Who are CWC? After the second world, former navy veteran Ray Mellor was the managing director of Hamilton UK. He was responsible for developing the part of the business which dealt with the MoD’s procurement of watches for military use. After Hamilton UK dissolved, Ray set up his own brand, the Cabot Watch Company (CWC), named after navigator and explorer John Cabot, to continue fulfilling government contracts for military watches. So unlike other brands producing watches for military use as well as civilians (such as Omega, Rolex, Hamilton, Longines and so on), CWC is different in that the brand was conceived principally to supply the MoD. Today, although they still supply the British Armed Forces, CWC primarily make watches for civilians.
Who are TGN? The Grey Nato came about when the now Brand Director for Christopher Ward (previously for Bremont), Nick Pearson, introduced Jason Heaton, an avid adventurer, author and scuba expert who reviews dive watches by actually diving with them, to Hodinkee’s James Stacey. We’ve mentioned some of the watches featured in Heaton’s novels here and here. The pair soon formed their podcast where topics range from travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear and most certainly watches. Both co-hosts venerate the tradition of British watchmaking from the mid to late century, especially tool watches for military use. It’s no surprise, then, that the pair are CWC fanboys. Heaton in fact wrote a pioneering blog post about how CWC replaced Rolex and Omega in supplying the British Armed Forces’ watches, and even wore his 90’s issued Royal Navy dive watch while running the Fan Dance (a 15-mile mountain ruck used as part of UK Special Forces training.
CWC RN Diver (top left) with FXD Case (top right), Cabot Sea Falcon 12-hour bezel (bottom left), and Doxa Pro’ orange highlight (bottom right)
The watch in question… Simply dubbed the Crew Watch, is essentially a standard CWC Royal Navy divers’ watch, but with a few changes. The case is in grade 5 titanium rather than stainless steel, and features integrated strap keepers like the Tudor Pelages FXD’s case (a watch Tudor gifted Heaton and which won their one watch tournament by the way). Rather than any old off-the-shelf quartz movement, the Crew Watch features a high accuracy quartz movement accurate to within 10 seconds a year. The look of the watch is rounded out by the use of a 12-hour bezel rather than a dive-time bezel (possibly taken from the CWC Cabot Sea Falcon). This gives the watch world-ready usability for travel and adventure, essentially being able to act as a GMT watch, while at the same time having a simplified less-in-more design. The cherry on top is an orange tip to the seconds hand which gives the watch an ineffable tool-watch feel (read more about why orange is synonymous with the tool watch here).
What does this mean for the future of CWC? The Crew Watch isn’t a civilian watch, so to speak. It has only been made available and issued, if you will, to paying members of the TGN Slack, who call themselves the Crew. But I predict CWC will use the titanium case and high-accuracy movement to create an updated dive watch for the brand. Perhaps just like the Crew Watch, but readily available and without a few of the TGN-specific specifications such as the 12-hour bezel and orange tipped seconds hand listed above. If they do it, I’ll be sure to get hands on. But ultimately, the Crew Watch is its own thing; sold-out and unavailable unless one of the original recipient Crew members or subscribers chooses to sell theirs, which I can’t imagine they will. And I think that’s a good thing. The TGN Crew is a close-knit, intimate yet global community of adventurers and watch-lovers who deserve their unique version of the watch.
I’d like to finish by mentioning my admiration for Heaton and Stacey’s fundraising efforts for the recent California wild fires. As of yet they have raised over $4,000 though selling T-Shirts, which you can find out more about here.
The thumbnail photograph for this post is from @timeeq on Instagram