Part 1
Normally when I write a review I start with a watch that I have owned for some months or even a year or so and of course with the title; I know pretty much from the get go what my main message is going to be. This time, however is different, very, very different.

There is a whole glorious spectrum of wristwatches that I admire, sadly most of them being way out of my price-range if I’m brutally honest with myself (which is seldom when it comes to emptying the bank on account of a new wrist watch).

So why the difficulty this time? Well, I’m sure my review is going to trigger some knee-jerk hater reactions based on prejudice, snobbery or well, I don’t know. I had to think for at least a few seconds about whether I should become associated with something like this. But my initial reactions were all so positive that I wanted to share them with the wider WIS community. So here we go.

I’ve been on the hunt for a very specific sort of watch for some years now, without real success. I have even contacted the CEO of Omega (numerous times) asking him to make a Globemaster GMT, also without success and had almost resigned myself to the fate of having to buy a Rolex (GMT Master II, Exp II etc) but the watch in this review just stopped that process dead in its tracks!

Things took a rather unexpected turn (for the better) on Tuesday this week. I received some spam email (which I normally just delete) but for whatever reason decided to opened this one, read it, saw the watch and decided to buy it, instantly. I doubt it was even one whole second. The decision was probably faster than with my Omega Railmaster LE; this is scary addictive stuff!

I had a bit of trouble to view the website in a stable way on my iPhone, so I switched to the PC and all was OK. Total time from opening the email to receiving the order confirmation from the manufacturer was 2 hours, 44 minutes which seemed like an age.

And what did I order?

The new Christopher Ward C65 Trident GMT.

At this point I expect some of you to stop reading, others to say “C65 what?” more still to say “it’s an homage to….” but I hope some might just persevere and read further.

This is what the advert blurb said: “In the new C65 Trident GMT, the 1960s dive watch theming introduced in our bestselling C65 Trident Diver has gone global.

Powered by a Swiss-made automatic ETA 2893 movement, its wearer can now track up to three time zones at once thanks to its 24-hour stainless steel bezel accompanied by a vivid orange GMT hand. Combined with a water resistance of 150m, the C65 Trident GMT is the perfect travel partner.”

…but I wasn’t reading, I was looking at …well how should I describe it? The image was is as if someone had read all my posts on Globemasters, GMTs, getting old gold Seamasters back from over-polished shit to their former sharp bevelled glory, vintage looks in a modern product, without ice-hockey puck geometry and thickness and probably a whole bunch of other things that slip my mind at this particular moment … and rolled them all up into one watch. It most definitely had my attention.

The first stunned moment turned to purchasing tunnel vision, I was completely on auto, which just doesn’t happen to me, normally; I’m a dull dependable aerospace engineer, but not that evening.

Once the deal was closed I was so moved by the whole experience that I decided to send the company an email explaining my reaction, with no real expectation of a reply. To my surprise I received a personal reply of thanks from one of the co-founders (Mike France), with the other two co-founders (Chris Ward and Peter Ellis) in copy. That was a very nice touch.

Let me take you through the unboxing and initial observations. Apologies in advance for the dire photos, but they were shot under a state of excitement, evening lighting and fear of covering everything in dollops of spicy hot “Lucifer” pizza that had been delivered just a few moments before I started the unboxing.


Here’s the outer carton with some sort of foam pad and a loop for lifting the box out.


The foam pad (removed) isolates the inner box from the packaging sides. Clever logo, I like it.


The inner box. The flap is held firmly in place by a small magnet. I thought it might be glued at first, but no, just a magnet.


Oh, not bad! I was expecting just a simple cardboard or nasty faux leather box. Not expensive, not cheap and nasty, just right. Letter from the founders and…


Tray with Operating Manual and something else underneath.


A polishing cloth in envelope form, complete with subtle stamped logo. Did I mention that I do like that logo J.


That logo again, En-Ger-Land, En-Ger-La…oh well maybe not. Let’s keep going. How about opening the box and seeing what’s in there?


Looks like some of the protective foil has come adrift (probably due to those DHL folks chucking the parcel around). No signs of damage though.


And it’s finally out in the wild. I didn’t weigh it yet but it has reasonable heft, heavy enough to feel luxurious, light enough to be comfortable…we shall see later on that point.


Oh yes, nice case bevelled edges. When I think about how much effort was needed to recover my gold sparkle dial Seamaster’s case…yup, that was the look I was after. Notice the end-links to case lugs? Gaps are more or less non-existent, tight tolerances, perfectly matched link-to-lug curvature; someone was really paying attention here.


There’s that logo again and beautifully executed it is on the crown. We’ll come back to the crown in a minute. This watch sits wonderfully low on my wrist. The case appears to be super thin. I haven’t put the vernier caliper on it yet but, wow, impressive case design. No slab sides here (yes Rose’n’Crown boys I’m referring to you).

And the obligatory standard wrist shot.



It’s 41mm but wears like, well, I’m not sure, smaller, or just perfectly proportioned. It hugs the wrist. It might just be the best fitting watch I have ever put on….I have 14 others to compare it with.

The bezel looks like it would be bidirectional (being a GMT) but it’s not. It’s 120 clicks of unidirectional tight precision so I suppose you could use it for diving…into another watch review? The edge is grippy but without being coarse like a ceramic Seamaster PO, polished but not overly so like a Sinn 104 St Sa. I’m going to take the liberty at this point of nicking a photo from the CW website because I don’t have anything this close up (or good).



The text is crisp, precise and with depth, not just painted on. The bezel ring is beautifully brushed..and the list of “designed in England” attention to detail points just goes on and on.


Right, let’s get back to that crown.


I can’t remember who here on OF commented on the fiddly smallness of the crowns on vintage Seamasters and C-Case Connies, but they were right; beautiful to look at but a bit of a pain to operate (for a bloke). The crown on the C65 is a nicely finished combination of matt and polished surfaces and ….it’s humongous, but not disproportionately large, just man-friendly easy to operate. The dimensions are right and like the bezel edge CW have nailed the finish on the crown ribs, they look slightly sand blasted or maybe laser etched, who knows.

Looking up from the crown you might be thinking there is a domed crystal. I believe the crystal is a so-called box crystal. It is flat in the middle but has subtle radii at the edge. The edge also has a coloured (bluish) tinge to it, but not extremely so like on a Milgauss.

Does it have Lume?



Yep it’s fine. The plots have a sort of aged radium look about them when viewed under normal daytime lighting conditions, better than any Omega I have seen so far, yes even better than my Railmaster.


I would say the bracelet and clasp* sit slap bang in the design/quality middle ground between a vintage Oyster bracelet and a modern Sub’s Glidelock; a bit hard to visualize but that was my impression. It even has a functional (8mm?) micro-extension hidden in the rather thin clasp. Omega! How come you can’t do this? Please look and learn.


*The clasp is retained in the closed position by two independent pins attached to independent pushers. Who goes to this much design detail trouble on a watch that costs so little? Wow, honestly folks, this whole thing is a bit shocking for just 1200€ and not in a bad way. Now you know why the review is called Pandora’s Box.

So there has to be a catch somewhere, right? Well, if this watch has a weak link anywhere, it’s going to be the bit that Chris Ward and Co. weren’t responsible for: the ETA 2893 movement. This exact design with a CW in-house manual SH21 movement even without the GMT stuff would be just stonkingly good.

Since I don’t own an Omega with an 8906 caliber or one of the Rolex GMTs I can’t judge yet if it’s just me and GMTs or the ETA GMT is a bit of a fiddle; it is on my Sinn 857 UTC as well. In absolutely every other respect this is a killer watch....that I suspect will be criticised (by some silly parts of the WIS community) for being an homage (to the 1655 Exp II), which it oh so isn’t or having a cheap movement, which to be fair it does; but that can and probably should be corrected in any future updates.

So there you have it guys, a very well executed wrist watch at a laughably low price and I haven’t even begun to dig into all the other subtle design elements that Adrian Buchmann (CWs Senior Designer) has gathered together in this fascinating new timepiece.

Since it’s almost 2am (and I got up at 4am) I think I will call it a day and leave you with the link to more professional info than I can now be bothered to gather right now:-

https://www.christopherward.eu/c65-trident-gmt-3


Have a great Weekend folks!


Longbow

 

Very nice watch. Never been a CW guy but i really dig this

 

What, no photos of the Lucifer pizza?
I like that pitchfork, er, trident second hand:

 

Just boxes I'm afraid

 

Didn't read the whole thing but that trident second hand is one of a kind.

 

Superb review Longbow, as always! The case design is very impressive. If this watch had a Tudor logo it would create a firestormn!

 

Dunno where you’d get the homage to 1665 stuff from. Apart from having a steel bezel there’s not much similar to the Rolex.

Plus there’s nothing new in watch design so...

 

1655 Explorer II not 1665 Sub

 

Really well written. I felt like I went through the whole experience of ordering and unboxing myself and had to pace myself for fear of over excitment. I must say I am very supprised how nice this looks and will definatly be looking further into it. Thanks for sharing

 

Part 2

After a short night’s sleep and an overwhelming desire to get the thing properly on my wrist and into action it was necessary to remove the hang tag and shorten the bracelet. I also took the opportunity to take some more close-up photos and fill in some of the gaps missed from Part 1.



I’m not sure what the correct name for this link attachment system is but I would just call it pin and sleeve. It’s dead easy to re-size, as long as you have the right tools to hand.

Even though the decision to buy was ludicrously short there was an aspect to the watch that I suppose could be described as the tipping point., namely the bracelet or more specifically the clasp.

I just happened to notice that it had a micro-adjustment feature with a claimed range of 8mm. After the rather piffling range on my Railmaster LE that sort of extension range is genuinely useful. So let’s take a look at that aspect in more detail. Starting from the watch head and working down.

The lugs and end-links are 22mm (well I guess the end-links must be fractionally smaller). The first bracelet link is 21.5mm where it joins the end-link and starts to tapper down from there.



As an aside I have to say the fit and finish is just excellent. I mentioned it before, but I was half asleep then. Now in the cold light of day…it’s even better. It’s not just that the gaps are tiny, but the end-link curvature so precisely follows the lug curvature.

Moving onto the bracelet itself, the first three links on each end are fixed to one another and tapered. I’m not entirely sure why the first link needs to be pinned to the end-link, because the end-links are fully removable from the case. Anyway, after the three tapered links we have three removable straight links on each side, which look like this when removed:-



Continuing onwards we arrive at the last links joining the clasp.



This is where I think it gets quite interesting. Omegas and Rolexes with extension systems have rather chunky clasps. This one has an outer frame that is probably folded metal but almost looks milled. It isn’t much wider than the last bracelet link.



That sort of subtle transition from bracelet to clasp would have done the Railmaster LE a huge favour in my opinion.

Since the clasp logo is visible let’s have a closer look at that too.



Probably laser etched from the look of the surface within the squares.

Flipping it onto its side we can see how thick the clasp is.



Well, it isn’t very thick at all; it’s more like a classic vintage friction clasp…except it isn’t, it has an impressive double pin system, each independently linked to its respective pusher on the side of the clasp.



That strange tab in the middle is for operating the extension system, it’s the release lever. You just pull it towards the pins and the bracelet can slide outwards, like this:-



And that is ….



…indeed 8mm. You may also have noticed the saw tooth profile in there. That allows you to simply push the bracelet back into the clasp once it is closed and on your wrist to achieve the desired degree of tightness…much like the solution on the PloProf mesh clasp.

All in all a well thought out solution that looks good and works admirably.

Before I zoom in on a few additional features I would like to address why this watch, at least to me, is one of the most comfortable I have tried.

First the case dimensions and shape



12mm sounds pretty run-of-the-mill but the lug form and size combined with chamfered bevelled edges and the bezels tapered annulus break those 12mm up leaving an impression of a very slim watch head and that’s exactly how it wears, like a very thin watch. When I think about how thick an Omega Planet Ocean GMT is, or the way the new raved-about Tudor Pepsi GMT looks with its DDR Plattenbau flanks…no the C65 is a different beastie all together. It has wrist-hugging form and dimensions.


















I’ll close out by showing a few last close ups of the case back and crown.

 

Enjoyed reading your review @Longbow

Thanks for posting.

 

Were you familiar with the watch before purchasing? CW has never been on my radar since they are online only there doesn't seem to be a way to try then buy.
That is a beautiful piece. Congratulations.

 

Great review! I was reading CW magazine a couple of days ago, and almost pulled the trigger on this one.

Congratulations! It looks awesome on your wrist!

 

No, not at all.

But they do have a 60 day trial/returns policy, where you can even remove bracelet links and still return the watch if you aren’t satisfied. I don’t think I will need that though.

 

Went to their site, 60/60 policy, 60 day return 60 month warranty. Seems more than reasonable to me. Maybe the other online dealers should take note.

 

It IS awesome and it’s been on my wrist the whole week since it arrived. I can’t find anything at all to fault.

Despite having some great Omegas in my collection, this has hands down the most satisfying design, build quality and comfort.



The company is also a joy to engage with. I have had enjoyable exchanges with the three founders and chief designer from day 1. Delivery was fast(er) than promised and they go out of their way to help their customers.

 

Quick question -- was the watch shipped from your country? If it wasn't, did you get hit by import tax?

 

It was shipped from the UK to Germany, so (still) within the EU, therefore no additional taxes.

 

I see, thanks for the info!

 

Another wonderful review @Longbow thank you for taking the time to write and photograph this piece. Homage or not, CW is definitely moving in a good direction and I am looking forward to their future releases!