Since the introduction of their earliest watches back in 2005, Christopher Ward has been making great strides to offer diversity, function, and quality in the products they produce. At the very core of their line-up is the Trident collection, a family of watches that has grown to include a seemingly never-ending selection of divers, GMTs, and chronograph watches. Quite frankly, it’s a bit nauseating to really try and keep up but at least, in my mind, the Trident will always be a dive watch and one that has really gone the distance for Christopher Ward. This summer, the brand introduced the Christopher Ward C60 Trident Day Date COSC, a limited edition diver that’s about as back-to-basics as you can get when considering some of the recent models in Christopher Ward’s catalog. But, with 2017 pretty much standing as the undisputed year of the dive watch, should you really care all that much?
Right now, most of you are probably casually making your way through this review without giving it much thought. Some of you might just be skipping through it, maybe glancing at the photos and not even reading this part. You might not even know how you got here – the internet is a weird place, I get it. But, a lot of you (I know you’re out there) can’t wait to tell us about how much you despise the new Christopher Ward logo and you might even have some of your best memes locked and loaded for the comments section. Well, fear not. We’ll get to that in a bit but for now, I have to say that overall, I’ve enjoyed my time with the Christopher Ward C60 Trident Day Date COSC and think there’s a whole lot of value to consider here.
On paper, the Christopher Ward C60 Trident Day Date COSC might be the first watch from the brand that really piqued my interest. Previously, I had found it difficult to move past some of the brand’s aesthetic choices, but most of the watch’s design elements actually sat well with me. Not to mention, the watch is hefty, honestly well-constructed, and pulls off a cool balancing act of serving its wearer as a fun tool watch and a dressy diver. Much of this is due to the bracelet and case construction, which we’ll get into now.
Case
At 43mm wide, the Christopher Ward C60 Trident Day Date COSC’s 316L stainless steel case is pretty much at my limit in terms of size – unless we’re talking about something like a Panerai Luminor 1950 3 Days, which I’d totally wear given the chance. It’s both brushed and polished with an interesting flare to the lugs that curve down and make the case size manageable. While the bezel – with its zirconia ceramic insert – doesn’t exactly protrude beyond the case extremities, I found it a pleasure to operate and I’m actually grateful for this design choice. Each progressive and tactile “click!” is as delightful as the next one in its 120-click sequence, which is something I’ve been quite critical of in my watches lately.
Water resistance is 600m and I’m finding this more and more comical after witnessing how crazy far some brands are taking this whole water resistance thing to. Nevertheless, it’s a comforting sign of durability in our watches, whether we like to admit it or not. At 104g, you really do feel it on your wrist but thankfully, the watch is balanced enough that I could wear it for long periods without feeling any strain. The caseback was also neat, with a deep trident engraving that would often leave an impression at the top of my wrist. Maybe I wear my watches too tight? Finally, Christopher Ward tops it off with a flat sapphire crystal that has at least a single application of AR-coating and a nice red accent at the 12 o’clock bezel pip. I wasn’t brave enough to seriously abuse the scratch resistance of both the bezel and the crystal, but I’m sure they’ll perform favorably under tough conditions.
Dial
Here we go… All things considered, I actually found the dial of the Christopher Ward C60 Trident Day Date COSC to be more legible than I initially anticipated. Brightly polished, thin baton hour markers on a white dial with semi-polished hands sounds like a recipe for disaster. But, I didn’t find myself having too much difficulty quickly reading the time. My favorite part of the dial has to be the guilloche wave pattern. This kind of flowery, flashy finishing isn’t usually something I care for in watches living under “tool” umbrella but I found the execution subtle enough that it was pleasing each time it managed to catch my eye. It also took me a while to warm up to the Christopher Ward handset overall – a spinning trident on my watch can feel a bit gimmicky. However, something about the red version of the seconds hand felt, kinda cool, and really pops with the help of the white dial.
Both the hour and minute hand feature Super-LumiNova SLN-T-C1 and delivered a satisfying glow in the dark. They also extend well into their own corresponding tracks, so you never really have to take a guess at what you’re looking at. The more critical I am of this, the more I realize that a ton of watch brands are just making their hands way too short. Over at 3 o’clock, we have a nicely integrated day/date window with a polished aperture. No complaints here (I’m not really a date window hater) and it was always fun to witness the day and date mechanism snap into place right at midnight. It’s actually pretty loud, but satisfying.