I wore this band all through my trip and eventually tried to work out how to make one myself.  Then I came across this: http://www.instructables.com/id/Woven-paracord-braceletwatchband/

On arrival back home my splendid rubber watch strap broke (it had been through hell and back; chemicals, salt, sand and god knows what) and so I needed another. Well, I just so happened to have 20ft of paracord laying around and therefore got to work.  This is a trial run.  I am now going to buy some high quality paracord and make a really good one, but it worked!  (Done!)

The Christopher Ward Kingfisher is a brilliant watch, I have blogged at length about the quality of this watch maker and you can find my opinion on the link in the sidebar.  I don’t just review this watch I have worn his brand for 4 years.

Check this:

Version 1:

UPDATE with Version 2!

Today, I rebuilt the strap using some higher quality Paracord and a proper clip.  Here is the result:

The Tactical Man Watch is born!

Regards,

Basho

Firstly though, what makes a man’s watch?  It seems to me that the big names in male watches are struggling to sell their brands.  Unfortunately this has led to truly hideous watches that have all the hallmarks of a marketing department struggling with not only reality, but also a sense of the times.

The times are hard.

For some, and perhaps this is you – I hope not, the response to hard times is to not only ignore them, but to spend more.  After all this is what the government wants you to do to help the economy out of recession.  For that reason, modern watches are more expensive than ever.  Companies are pushing celebrity endorsements down everyone’s throat under the belief that we, as watch buying men, don’t know that said celebrity was given (or even paid to wear) such-and-such a brand.

I hate celebrity endorsements.  Take this one:

All that I get from these adverts is that Tiger Woods needs more roughage in his diet.  I mean why the “look”?  That, “I have a big wallet and no muesli,” look that is supposed to say, “Success, I have it – you want it.” Sure, Tiger is a good golfer, but do we really think that his watch defines that? This sort of thing is the advertisers pulling the wool over our eyes to fool our heads.  Is the product any good? Will I look like a berk when wearing it? Lets have an actual look at the watch in question:

I am actually amazed that Lewis Hamilton can tell the time on that over-designed lump on his wrist!  I mean, presumably, he has to check his watch in a hurry while driving 200 miles per hour.  If I was in that situation I would want a watch that was easy to read.

I choose another path and it is this I want to speak to you about.

• The path I choose is one of forming a relationship with your watch maker that goes beyond the financial.
• The path I choose is one where you are wearing a quality watch that is worth more than any celebrity.
• The path I choose is one of the very best quality at the optimum price.
• The path I choose is where people ask me about my watch and immediately go and buy one for themselves.
• Turning heads matters to me, I am a manly-man and I want a man’s watch.  However, I don’t want any part of the “pretender” watch culture.

I therefore turned to Christopher Ward London Limited.
 
 

 
 
His website makes his “mission” clear:

We are a new watchmaker with a simple aim.

We want to put high quality luxury watches within the reach of everyone.

To achieve this we have inverted the usual business model used by brands such as Rolex, Cartier and Omega. Instead of their extremely high margin requirements and the myriad of middlemen and retailers in the equation, we take a small but fair margin and have the ultimate direct business with not a single middleman and no retailer other than ourselves.

We can’t begin to match the hundreds of millions spent on advertising campaigns, sponsorships and “A” list celebrities of our better known competitors. Instead, we concentrate our efforts on designing beautiful timepieces and relying on delighted customers to recommend the brand to family, friends and colleagues on our behalf.

So, when I was looking for a timepiece to go around the world with I knew which company I wanted to use.  I passed on the faceless mega-brands, and instead went quintessentially for quality. My travels will include diving, caving, many many flights; buses; trains, and even bungy jumping 140meters.  I needed a watch that didn’t quit on me. I eventually selected the The Kingfisher Diver-Pro.  It is described by Christopher himself  in these terms:

I am a fanatical scuba-diver as is Philip our Swiss trained manufacturing partner so you can imagine how important an addition to the CWL collection is our first divers watch. The brief was quite simple: Create the ultimate professional divers watch that marries extreme condition functionality with exquisite good looks.

The quality of this watch will be understood by all those familiar with all good things hierological (the Swiss Ronda calibre 715 movement, the additional thickness of the sapphire glass, the screw-down case back with the engraved No Decompression Table – perhaps a world first, the 2-piece uni-directional bezel and Super-luminova markings, etc) which means the Kingfisher is water resistant to an astonishing 30 atmospheres/1000 feet, but to understand its beauty as well, just look at it. It’s enough to make a grown man dive!

I sent in the order to include two straps; leather and rubber.  I have a large wrist and so needed to make sure that I could swap the straps if needed.

Features

• Swiss made
• 5 Jewel Ronda quartz movement
• 2 Piece uni-directional bezel
• Screw-in crown and back plate
• 30 atm (1000 feet) water resistant case
• 4.5mm Sapphire crystal
• Adjustable strap with easy opening butterfly clasp
• Highly luminescent indices bezel marker and hands
• Unique engraved serial number and No Decompression Limit table

You can also upgrade to a automatic movement version (ETA 2824-2), which winds on the wrist.  After a short wait it arrived (Shown here with the leather strap):

Metal strap option:

The box:

One of the best features about using Christopher Ward, no matter the model you go for, is that the customer service is second to none.  I had called and checked the status of the order on numerous occasions and every time had received a full and helpful reply.  Moreover the packaging included a welcome letter signed by Mr Ward himself, this wasn’t so much a purchase as a relationship.

The Watch

So lets have a closer look:

Once I had the watch in my hands it felt quite heavy, but it slipped into the wrist very easily.  The sides of the case curve to match the wrist well.  Movement wise the automatic movement (ETA 2824-2) of the upgraded watch is top notch and of a quality far above the price point.  The basic movement is the ever reliable Ronda Quartz movement (pdf here) and forum posts and online reviews attest to its reliability over time. The backing of the watch face is a cobalt blue that is a little darker than this photo suggests and the hands are highly luminescent. The dial of the Kingfisher is available in the colours black, white, yellow, orange and blue.  The bezel aligns well and twists with a good click that makes time marking simple and easy to use. The straps I ordered with the watch are only two of the four options available.  I now only use the rubber strap.

The back of the watch includes a dive table.  This is, of course, not something to bet your life on under the water, but it is a nice addition.

The rubber strap is stamped with a Christopher Ward logo and the clasp is a firm click to set.

More images:

Review

So, how did it perform in the “real world”?

Upon receiving the watch I wore it with the leather strap.  I must say that while it does look hansom in this configuration, I very much prefer it with the rubber strap.  The leather is of a good quality but not as nice as alligator (which is available). Time was at first a few seconds out per day and this is totally normal for a Swiss movement.  After a few weeks it settled down and is now perfectly accurate and consistent. I changed the strap to the rubber one myself.  This was highly unnerving and not something I want to have to do again.  Mainly because without the right tools such a procedure is going to be much harder than it needs to be.  I eventually used my Leatherman to assist.  Once the leather strap was off (the easy part), I cut the rubber to the required length and then proceeded to attach it.  The trick in doing so it to make sure that the pin’s heads are completely pushed into the holes before wearing.  Once this is achieved the strap is very sturdy and has not been any problem in over a year.

I took the watch diving in the Great Barrier Reef:

and the watch performed perfectly.  I dived a total of 14 times in 3 days.  I even took it down to 25 meters and both the timing and the hand’s luminescence (3 seconds torch charged) worked fine. A total success and a few of the dive instructors asked where I had got such a nice watch.

Having successfully tested the watches primary function, I wanted to give it a challenge.

I rode with the watch up Mount John in New Zealand and it worked fine at that height.  I could detect no changes in movement and timing.  Also the strap worked fine on my very sweaty wrist without turning nor moving out of position. Even this was not enough for me.  I wanted to test the watch under the highest stress I could and since I am not a test pilot I had only one choice:

At 250 meters above a river, the Nevis is New Zealand’s highest bungy jump with a fall-distance of 134 meters.  It involves a drop with 8 seconds of free-fall, a mighty snap and having all that momentum suddenly reversed as the bungy reaches its longest point and pulls you back.

I made a video of my experience:

The watch again performed splendidly.  Nothing broke lose and nothing showed any signs of stress.  This is a watch designed for action. I then took the watch into the Jungles of South East Asia.  In such environments any watch will have to put up with coming into contact with all sorts of chemicals. Namely DEET, the active ingredient in anti-mosquito spray, and something we lathered all over skin open to the elements.  The use of DEET was made famous in Desert Storm when the mid strength version (up to 50% concentration) managed to melt the rubber and plastic on the SA80 battle rifle.

I have used DEET up to 90% concentration and have had no problems with the strap melting.  A victory again for the CW brand.

In my travels the watch has drawn looks and admiring comments from a very varied group of people.  While not so outlandish that I become a target for robbers, it is an eye grabber and I have had conversations with dive instructors, Tuk-Tuk drivers, fellow travellers and all sorts of Indian street urchins.  It seems that the brand is not one that elicits derision of spend, nor does it reek of cheapness.  It says quality.

On a train in India, writing this article:

In Mumbai:

On my wrist in Hanoi, Vietnam during Tet:

Clearly, this is a man’s watch.  Clearly, this is a brand to be proud of.  Clearly you should consider Christopher Ward in your next watch purchase.  I will continue to wear mine over the next 6 months of travel and if it fails at all I will post here.

If you are interested in having a Christopher Ward watch please click below to open his website: Christopher Ward watches.

Christopher Ward London Limited

Update!

Chris has now released a very nice GMT version of the watch, click to take a look:

Regards,

Basho

For example, James Bond wears a £1200 Omega watch and has always personified the luxury watch lifestyle, but in the latest Bond film he has his purchase mocked by the love interest as an unfashionable macho attitude (of course he eventually sleeps with her as after all this is Bond we are talking about.)

So, if these “big man”, “look at me”, “I have a big… watch” type watches are out of fashion, what is there left for the modern manly man?

Why does this matter? Beefcake dies a death and good riddance yes? Well, I for one think that it is more important than that. Simply because, for the vast majority of men, their watch is the only jewelry that they wear. It is their only chance to express something about themselves. Hence the watch culture of Rolex and Omega. Much like buying a luxury car such as a Porsche, Omega sells an expression.

Buying into “cool” is everywhere now. I thnk that It has unfortunately become cheapened by this. Remember that FCUK and Burberry started life as high end brands full of expense and luxury. Now they are bog trotting, FHM garbage worn only by Chavs; a social grouping almost universally reviled.

The “Omega-style” watch is going that way. By being able to simply buy class, class loses all meaning as an identifier. David Beckham, X-Factor, Coleen, Paris Hilton, etc have all cheapened the experience of purchasing things as a route to class.

So where now? I found myself stepping into the very deep end of a very large pool that threatened at every turn to leave me with something I would not like.

Everyone takes a stance with their watch, what would mine be?

Consider that even wearing a cheap watch is a stance. I know a man who has a lavish lifestyle of wealth and hard won privilege and his watch is a 99p Casio. Why? Because he is making a statement?

What will be my statement?

If I wasn’t going to buy into the Bond, fast cars, super high end bullshit where could I go?

/Start Digression

When discussing this article, someone commented to me, “What about your wedding ring?” Firstly, the ring was jointly chosen by my wife and I and matches hers so it is not unique, it is part of a matched pair. Secondly, the ring is not jewelry at all. It is actually a ward; for warning off single women, reminding them that I am taken. Thus, my watch is the only truly individual thing I wear.

/End Digression

For the last few years I have been wearing my beloved Citizen Pro Diver. Beloved for two reasons. Firstly, it was purchased for my by my wife as my wedding engagement present and secondly it is a brilliant watch for diving.

Not that I dive often, but I have qualified for diving and liked wearing it.

However, it was starting to wear heavy on my arm and over the last year or so, I have been working up the impetus to only semi-retire it and only use it for diving. I am much more a London city-man these days and I need a watch that reflects me in 2007.

With the “big man” watches out of the running, I came to consider the other major type of men’s watch; the military models.

I am an avid Airsofter, Fencer and Martial Artist. I am typically considered to be a man’s man and thus I wondered if the military world would offer me what I was looking for.

Military models tend to be low in specification but high in build quality. They have a large practical aspect that corresponds to the military need for ease and speed of use. They also generally have rugged features.

My search immediately hot upon a likely candidate, the Jack Bauer watch called the MTM Blackhawk. This £350 hardcore watch is time pared down to the most basic feature set; the time and the ability to see it. It lacks even a date feature, which is apt when you think about it as why does Jack Bauer need a date marker? Everything always happens in 24 hours!

Jack is a fantastic role model for a real man, as he cares about people and yet is a consummate professional who has amazing courage.

I was very excited about this watch for about a month, and then I took a closer look. It is actually ugly and hard to read. Sure it has a gimmick in that it lights up, but this was not enough for me.

So, distraught, I went searching into the city and eventually into a watch shop near Liverpool St, resigned to dropping over £1k to come out with something I would not be that happy with and my wife would kill me over.

Of course, the man in the shop saw me coming from a mile away. At this time of year the whole city is wallet bulging, spend-crazy and shop-me-happy due to the bonus cheques having come in. The man in the shop tried to sell me an Omega for half a hour, but he did not know my feelings I outlined above and so he failed.

I went back to my office, lost, and started to take a final look around the web…

Then I found it.

Christopher Ward is a watch maker of the old school. He doesn’t believe in high margins, or films stars wearing his watches. He only cares about two things quality and making an honest living,

We are a new watchmaker with a simple aim.

We want to put high quality luxury watches within the reach of everyone.

To achieve this we have inverted the usual business model used by brands such as Rolex, Cartier and Omega. Instead of their extremely high margin requirements and the myriad of middlemen and retailers in the equation, we take a small but fair margin and have the ultimate direct business with not a single middleman and no retailer other than ourselves.

We can’t begin to match the hundreds of millions spent on advertising campaigns, sponsorships and “A” list celebrities of our better known competitors. Instead, we concentrate our efforts on designing beautiful timepieces and relying on delighted customers to recommend the brand to family, friends and colleagues on our behalf.

This was like music to my ears. A watch maker that sells quality, but is still exclusive. That’s how I (like to) see myself. I care about refined quality sure, but I like to be savvy on price and not to buy my way into “cool.” Rather I try to let my own sense of style reflect itself through the watch. They say that the clothes make the man, but I would like to think different. A true man is practical, strong and elegant. Not a Metro-Sexual clothes horse. Like Tyler Durden commented to the narrator in the film fightclub,

The bus is crowded. As Tyler and Jack walk toward the back, the narrator studies the faces of OTHER PASSENGERS.

They hold hand grips. the narrator looks up an ADVERTISEMENT; a CALVIN KLEIN ad featuring a tan, bare-chested MUSCLE STUD.

The Narrator (V.O.)
I felt sorry for the guys packing into gyms, trying to look like Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger said they should.

The Narrator
(indicating the ad)
Is that how a man looks like?

Tyler looks at the C.K. advertisement and laughs.

Will CW have something that speaks in this voice?

Well, his current line up includes many types and it was this model that caught my eye,

The raven black finish that distinguishes the watches in our Corax collection is courtesy of our state of the art IPK ionic plating process that delivers superb looks and a diamond hard finish.

Feature List:

* Muscular 42mm IPK case and bracelet
* Advanced, Swiss ISA 8154-220 movement
* Uni-directional 60 ratchet bezel
* Engraved, unique serial number
* Risk free 60 day trial

* Ionic plated 316L stainless steel case & bracelet
* 9 Jewel Swiss quartz movement
* 12hr alarm
* Split-seconds / stop watch / tachymeter
* 5 year movement guarantee
* Screw-down case & engraved, unique serial number
* Screw-locked crown
* Cambered sapphire crystal glass
* Water resistant to 50 metres
* Uni-directional 60 ratchet bezel
* Super-Luminova indexes and hands

A fantastic feature set and then I saw the price: £175. That’s right, 1750 pence.

Amazing!

At this price, I can take the plunge and testdrive the watch with no financial worries. Truly CW has broken the mould that says, “you must PAY for entry.”

Checking around the web produced some very good reviews of CW watches, as well as a dedicated fan forum that was full of happy users and some preview content. This started to feel less like a watch purchase and more like a relationship between designer and wearer. Something that a corporation could never offer.

Satisfied and full of eagerness I ordered and two days later the package arrived, here are some mobile phone shots,

The packaging.

The watch clasp.

The watch face.

First impressions,

Wow, what a lovely watch. Smooth, sublime and very clean. Not super heavy, but having a definite weight. The face is very easy to read and well laid out with the small faces not blocking anything else. It is open, wide and the black and silver digit markers contrast fantastically.

The really great thing, at this point, was the strap. My previous strap on the Citizen was very chunky, which made it very hard to wear while typing, something that I do all day. In contrast the Corax sits very neatly against the wrist and is far more comfortable than the Citizen.

Another feature, and one that I was not expecting, was an alarm. The button on the bottom left controls the alarm on/off controls with a small beep/double beep and this was a very welcome addition. The alarm chime is gentile, not enough to wake me, but perfect as a reminder for things.

With a happy feeling I went to wear the watch for a week before writing this article.

Immediately I hit a problem. I wear watches quite low on the arm; right next to the wrist. The basic issue was that the pin that unclips the metal strap was too close to my hand and whenever I moved my hand down past 45 degrees the pin would get tapped and the strap would flick open. This happened every time I put my hands in my pockets, which as you can imagine, is not the time to have a watch muck you around. I am pretty sure that this is a problem personal to me. Many people will wear this watch in a different location, such as higher up the arm, and they will not encounter this issue. Further I am a very large guy, with big hands and thick wrists and I perhaps fall outside the design specifications.

Anyway, it was highly annoying and for me almost a deal breaker. Frustrated, I was about to take advantage of the 60 day, no quibble guarantee, when I spotted and decided to try out a leather strap.

CW sells a leather strap for the generation that the Corax falls into, but it is not designed for this special version. I ordered it wondering if it would do the job at all or even look correct. My fears were put to rest when it arrived. The leather strap is everything that metal ones were not. It hugs the wrist, is much more comfortable and will not come off. I love it, and think that the watch looks very elegant in this configuration.

Realisation struck me that I had been wearing my Citizen as part watch, part bracelet. This perhaps harks back to the jewelry aspect of male watch design, or perhaps to just my chavish upbringing. Nevertheless, The CW watch is all watch and all the better for it.

I have grown even fonder of this timepiece. The features are all easy to use and actually useful to my life. The watch goes with anything that I wear, which the Citizen certainly did not, and the leather strap has an understated elegance and softens the chunk of steel on my wrist.

It speaks the language of real men in the year 2007. We are not quite the aggressive misogamist monsters of the past, but similarly we are not the Metro-Sexual girlyness of David Beckham. We are a new breed. Similar to the ancient Samurai, warriors; yes, but also gentlemen. Poets and artists in everything that we do, our actions must speak for themselves and we would never sell ourselves short by spending obscene amounts to buy our way into a fictional group that exists only in the minds of marketing people.

This is the sort of watch my Granddad would have bought. WWII Airforce pilot and war hero, he would have liked the ease of use, the firm grip of the strap and the lack of pretension and that is more than good enough for me.

Over the Xmas break I have had a lot of comments on the watch and everyone is very impressed with the CW business model.

I am sure that when the future watches come out I will be buying more, as the price level lends itself to collection. There is a diver model in the pipeline that I especially like the look of.

Overall definitely a fine timepiece, one that grows on you and one that you can proud to wear.

Regards, Basho

If you too want a Christopher Ward watch then please click this link: Christopher Ward London Limited

The layout of the face,

Image taken from the manual and owned by CW.

The movement, ISA based:

Images owned as marked