Christopher Ward C60 Trident Reef Review

Since starting Hourstriker, Christopher Ward has been a brand that has made a huge impression on me. Prior to starting the site Christopher Ward was a complete unknown to me, since my expertise was not with microbrands but solely focused traditional high horology brands. Starting Hourstriker really opened my mind up to a whole other world of watches I had never seen before with Christopher Ward being one of those brands.

Today it would be hard to call Christopher Ward a microbrand off of the tremendous success they have had over the past few years, but when I started Hourstriker they were still in that category, if only by a thread. With Hourstriker being completely new and not wanting to use my prior experience to help the new site along, I had no idea if any brands would take us seriously. Much to my surprise Christopher Ward and Ulysse Nardin actually gave me the time of day and even agreed to send us watches to review.



Now we have dozens and dozens of brands offering to send us samples to review, but that was nowhere near the case when we started. It still means a lot to me that brands like Christopher Ward were so open and inviting to our new site. Pretty soon after we started covering Christopher Ward the brand just blew up. Christopher Ward released the The Twelve, Bel Canto, The Twelve X, Trident Lumiere and most recently the C12 Loco and all were huge successes catapulting the brand into the mainstream. I couldn't be happier to see the success that has fallen upon Christopher Ward to be honest.

Christopher Ward was actually started by three friends who had the idea to start a watch company in May 2004 while on a boat trip down the Thames. These friends were Mike France, Peter Ellis and Chris Ward. France and Ellis were business partners and had worked for firms like BHS and the Sears Group and had just sold their extremely successful venture, the Early Learning Centre. Ward on the other hand was getting bored with his business of importing t-shirts. The trio looked for a new challenge that would put off an early retirement.

The three were interested in watches but not to the point where they would just romantically start a watch brand. Through business contacts they were able to figure out that the margin on some luxury watches could be as high as 34 times manufacturing costs. After doing intensive research they were positive that they could create high quality watches and still have a successful business while only charging the end customer 3 times manufacturing costs.



One of the major parts of the brand being able to achieve such a low markup would be that they would sell directly to customers and thus cut out wholesalers, distributors and authorized dealers who all took profit away from each watch produced. The brand would also sell exclusively online which would drastically reduce the cost of purchasing and running a dedicated boutique. Costs would also be shaved by not endorsing any celebrities, but rather having the watches speak for themselves. Owners and curious reviewers would soon give their unbiased takes on the quality of their watches as well.

The trio came up with the name Christopher Ward since of the three founders Chris Ward's name sounded the most English. The brand's office was set up in a converted chicken shed in Cookham Dean, Berkshire where the three got to work on the formation of Christopher Ward. The first watches, the quartz C3 Malvern Chronograph and C5 Malvern Automatic, were launched by mid 2005. Even with using genuine Swiss movements and robust cases Christopher Ward was able to offer their watches for £179. The price was so low that the watch community scoffed at the brand and wrote them off as having to be subpar.

Everything changed for Christopher Ward when during the holiday season of 2005 a watch expert from the TimeZone forum named Dave Malone purchased the C5 Malvern Automatic with the sole purpose of tearing it apart on TimeZone. Much to everyone's surprise Malone ended up loving the watch and writing a glowing review saying the watch was everything that was advertised. What followed was an avalanche of interest from the TimeZone community in Christopher Ward. Even today Malone's review is still looked upon as the single most important event in the brands history.



Following the success on TimeZone, soon the Christopher Ward forum was established for everything about the brand and is still a huge part of Christopher Ward in present times. Even with great growth between 2005 and 2008, Christopher Ward was soon hit with two huge challenges. First was the financial crisis of 2008 that really saw direct to consumer based businesses hit the hardest. The second hurdle came when movement supplier ETA decided to stop selling movements to most non-Swatch Group brands. Christopher Ward ended up finding the silver lining in this by partnering with Synergies Horlogeres and Sellita for their movements going forward.

Synergies Horlogeres and Christopher Ward eventually ended up merging into Christopher Ward London Holdings Ltd in 2014. This move allowed Christopher Ward to finally have full control of their manufacturing and get one step closer to becoming a vertical watch brand. Christopher Ward's first in-house movement came with the Calibre SH21 in 2014 which was the first commercially produced in-house movement out of Britain in over 50 years. This movement would go on to be featured on the current Twelve X model and served as a foundation for the incredible free sprung balance C12 Loco.

Even before the SH21 was created, Christopher Ward had been working with JJ Calibres to develop modules that could go on base calibers from ETA or Sellita to achieve some high-end complications. These included a jump hour module, a single-pusher chronograph, a worldtimer and finally a large moonphase. These modules are still being used today in Christopher Ward's current catalog and the JJ01 Jump Hour module laid the groundwork for the module that eventually allowed the Bel Canto's Hourstriker to chime.



The late 2010s and early 2020's saw a lot of changes for Christopher Ward. The most major of them being the change of the branding to just being a single twin flag logo with Christopher Ward being found nowhere on the dial. This initially outraged long time fans of the brand, but in time it was accepted. I also find it daring to not use your brand's name on a dial and relying only on the form of the watch to project which brand produced it. Much of the success of Christopher Ward's watches being able to be picked out from across a room is owed to the Light-catcher case. This case uses flowing curves and sharp facets to add depth and dimension to a watch's case and is still being refined and perfected to this day.

The 2020s are a time of growth and in both production and retail prices for Christopher Ward. The brand was founded on being an extremely budget conscience brand but releases like the Bel Canto, C12 Loco and The Twelve X has stretched prices well into the mid four figures. This has alienated some Christopher Ward collectors, but the brand still has plenty of watches that are more than obtainable. It must also be remembered that even these more expensive watches still stick to Christopher Ward's promise of keeping retail prices no more than 3 times manufacturing costs.

Initial Thoughts

While recently the watches we've been reviewing from Christopher Ward fall in the higher price spectrum of pieces offered by the brand, today we're going to focus on a watch that was just recently released and is well under $1,000. The model in question is the C60 Trident Reef which comes in a variety of colors inspired by the endangered coral reefs and the paper art of Ana Brecevic. Two percent of sales from the C60 Trident Reef series will even go to the Blue Marine Foundation to help with ocean conservation. This cause is near and dear to me since in the past I've been a huge fan of the saltwater fish and coral hobby and even had many tanks including two very large ones.



When the C60 Trident Reef arrived the first thing I noticed about it was the stunning Tuba Orange color of the watch. The C60 Trident Reef has a bright orange dial that perfectly matches the orange dive bezel. The dial is also close to the burnt orange color of the college I attended, the University of Texas… which is always a plus. The rest of the dial and bezel use white markers that contrast nicely with the orange.

The next thing I noticed about the C60 Trident Reef was the orange anodized aluminum ring found around the mid case. When I first put together the release article for the collection I did not even notice this touch. While touches like this used to be common decades ago, we haven't really seen it used in current watchmaking. This little touch gives the watch a very unique look and ties in the case perfectly to the bezel and dial. Once again, more orange… nothing wrong with that.

The final thing I noticed about the Christopher Ward C60 Trident Reef during my initial time with the watch was the lightweight construction. I'm the first to tell you that I do not like stainless steel watches since they tend to be heavy, especially when talking about larger watches. With being 44 mm and crafted out of stainless steel, I expected the C60 Trident Reef to weigh in around 130 grams. In reality the watch only weighed 103 grams on our scale when attached to the rubber strap and pin buckle. Watches under 100 grams are really my favorite and most of the time those need to be crafted out of lightweight materials like carbon, ceramic or titanium. That the C60 Trident Reef was able to be so close to 100 grams and crafted out of stainless steel is very impressive to me.



Technical Specifications

Now that we've spoken about the history of Christopher Ward as well as my initial impressions of the C60 Trident Reef let's now talk about the watch's technical specifications. The C60 Trident Reef is crafted out of stainless steel and has a case diameter of 44 mm and a lug to lug length of 51.3 mm. The watch weighs in at 103 grams and at its thickest point is 11.8 mm tall.

The C60 Trident Reef uses a slightly raised flat sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating applied to it. Underneath the crystal clear sapphire is the radiant Tuba Orange dial which has a light sand texturing to it. Around the outside of the dial is a thick white minute track with applied polished bar hour markers. Each hour marker has a single bar with 12 o'clock getting a double bar. The hour markers are filled with Super-Luminova Grade X1 BL C1 that glow a brilliant bluish green in low light.

There are three centrally mounted hands on the C60 Trident Reef being the hour, minute and seconds hands. Christopher ward uses a large polished arrow for the hour hand and a blue outlined pencil shaped hand for the minutes. The seconds hand is slender and polished and has a triangle at its tip with its counter balance being shaped into a trident. The hands have the same matching lume that is found on the hour markers. At 12 o'clock is the Christopher Ward twin flag logo which is applied and has a brushed finish. At 6 o'clock is printed "Automatic", "200 m | 660 ft" and "Swiss Made".



Moving on from the dial is the anodized aluminum bezel that is uni-directional and requires 120 clicks to complete a full rotation. The bezel has a great click and action to it and is very sure with zero hint of back play. Each ten minute interval on the dive bezel is set with an Arabic numeral and 60 is replaced with a lumed triangle which also matches the lumed dial elements. In between five minute indicators use a slender hash mark. The bezel is rather thin but is scalloped nicely and should be able to be used while wearing dive gloves.

The top and mid case are brushed in finish with polished chamfers. This gives the watch a tool look while also giving a hint of luxury with the polished pieces. As to the name of the case, the case really does catch the light well. As we touched on before, there is an orange anodized aluminum ring that goes around the entire mid case. The only area this orange isn't visible is where the lugs meet the case. Looking at the profile of the case you can see the watch has a nice curve to it that follows your wrist.



The right hand side of the case features a large screw down crown with smaller crown guards on each side. The crown like the bezel is nicely scalloped and provides excellently grip. The crown is a mixture of polished and satin finishes and features the Christopher Ward twin flag logo on top of it. Unscrewing the crown allows you to manually wind the automatic movement in the resting position. Pulling the crown out to position one stops the seconds hand and allows you to set the time. This is the only crown position since there is no date complication on the C60 Trident Reef. Pushing the crown back in causes no jump in the minutes hand and getting the crown to catch to screw back in requires no extra care. The screw down crown also aids in the 200 meters of water resistance.

The C60 Trident Reef has a 22 mm lug width and comes on an aqau blue aquaflex rubber strap the tapers down to 15.5 mm. You can order the watch on a host of different color rubber straps or a stainless steel bracelet, but the aqua blue rubber strap might be the best option since it perfectly matches the blue outline of the minute hand. The strap is extremely supple and required zero break in to be extremely comfortable. The strap features a brushed stainless steel pin buckle with Christopher Ward branding on it, which is the only place on the outside facing sections of the watch to feature the brand name.



Flipping the watch over shows off the screw down stainless steel caseback with a sapphire crystal viewing window. Through the case back you can see the Swiss Made Sellita SW200-1 automatic movement. A branded Christopher Ward winding rotor can be seen on top of the movement complete with repeating twin flag logos. While a dive watch, Sellita still finished the movement nicely with some circular graining.

The SW200-1 beats away at 28,800 vph (4Hz) and has a power reserve of around 38 hours. 38 hours is a bit short for a modern power reserve, but if the watch is worn near daily it shouldn't need to be wound and reset. The movement also features bi-directional winding. The SW200-1 was built to be a drop in replacement to the extremely popular ETA 2824 and as such can be serviced and repaired by just about any local watchmaker. The accuracy of the SW200-1 is rated at +/- 20 seconds per day, but our on timegrapher we saw an accuracy of +4 seconds per day when averaged out over several positions. This is amazing accuracy and even within chronometer specifications.

On The Wrist

The Christopher Ward C60 Trident Reef has pretty much perfect proportions for my 7.25 inch wrist with a 55 mm flat area. The 51.3 mm lug to lug length covers my wrist nicely and the rubber strap has nice grip which keeps the watch centered on my wrist. With a thickness of 11.8 mm the watch looks proportionate with its 44 mm case diameter.



The C60 Trident Reef weighs just over 100 grams and when combined with the ergonomic case and comfortable rubber strap is just a treat on the wrist. Even during very extended periods of wear the watch pretty much disappeared on the wrist and was only there when I needed it. Normally I'd say a watch would suit me better if crafted out of titanium, but I feel the weight is dead on with the stainless steel construction.

To test the legibility of a watch I have a simple test that I conduct. Basically I try to see how difficult it is to tell the time of a watch at just a glance while driving. Unsurprisingly dive watches usually ace this test with their high contrast dials and large hands and numerals. So then it's no surprise that the C60 Trident Reef being a dive watch had no trouble with my legibility test. Of course the results could have been better if the watch featured large Arabic numerals instead of polished hour markers, but that would have drastically changed the look of the watch. Also with the generous amounts of lume on the dial, the C60 Trident Reef was easy to decipher in low light situations.



I wore the Christopher Ward C60 Trident Reef exclusively for the majority of the time I had the watch. During this time the watch accompanied me on a host of boring everyday errands as well as going out to meals and drinks. The C60 Trident Reef acted as a perfect wrist companion during the day and was a fun watch to go out with in the evening. We live in a rather casual city here in Austin, so the C60 Trident Reef pretty much fits in during all situations. I also dress fairly casual with mostly black t-shirts, shorts and sneakers. If you have a more formal dress you might want to look at a less bright variant of the C60 Trident Reef or have other watches in your collection that you could wear in those situations.

I did notice that the C60 Trident Reef attracted a lot of attention when being worn out. This isn't too much of a surprise since the watch has a bright orange dial, bezel and case. Like I said, orange is also a color that will get noticed in Austin, especially more so on a watch. The bright aqua blue strap didn't do much to mute the appearance of the watch either. I'd say this colorway really isn't for somebody who wants a watch that blends in. The C60 Trident Reef screams to be taken on a beach vacation or to hang out at the pool. I was approached by a few people who had comments and questions about the watch and most just loved the dial color and orange mid case. Some even knew about Christopher Ward, so that was interesting to hear. Most were also shocked by the price of the C60 Trident Reef as well.



Value and Position in the Market

Speaking of price, the Christopher Ward C60 Trident Reef retails for $850. For that price you're getting a very well built and capable dive watch that has a unique colored anodized aluminum mid case. The C60 Trident Reef also runs on the ultra reliable and accurate Swiss Made Sellita SW200-1 and uses the newest generated of the Light-catcher case. Like we do for every review, now would be a good time to look at other watches that have similar features and specifications and see how the C60 Trident Reef stacks up in terms of value.

First up we have the DS Super PH1000M STC from Certina which has a 43.5 mm case made from stainless steel. The DS Super PH has a vintage styled case that might not be for everyone and a summery sea green dial. The watch runs off of a Powermatic 80 automatic movement with 80 hours of power reserve. The DS Super PH1000M also offers a staggering 1,000 meters of water resistance. The Certina is a bit more expensive than the Christopher Ward at $1,150 though.

Moving on is the Khaki Navy Scuba Auto from Hamilton which has a 40 mm stainless steel case. Like the C60 Trident Reef and DS Super PH, the Khaki Navy Scuba can be had in various fun colors such as orange, yellow and pink. The Hamilton has half of the water resistance of the Christopher Ward at 100 meters and runs off of a very similar movement to the Certina with 80 hours of power reserve. The Khaki Navy Scuba is also more expensive than the C60 Trident Reef at $895.



Next up is the SUB 300 Professional from Doxa which has a 42.5 mm case crafted out of stainless steel. The DOXA also has a vintage style cushion case like the DS Super PH which can be a bit polarizing. The SUB 300 offers a little more water resistance than the C60 Trident Reef at 300 meters and runs off of a very similar movement to what's found in the Christopher Ward. The SUB 300 is offered in a wide range of dial colors including the colorful orange dial found on the Professional. The SUB 300 is much more expensive than the C60 Trident Reef at $2,550.

Finally we have the 1521 Ocean from Squale which has a 42 mm case made out for stainless steel. The 1521 has a slight vintage look with the crown positioned at 4:30. The Ocean version also has a colorful bright blue dial. The 1521 uses the same movement found in the C60 Trident Reef in the Sellita SW200-1 with 38 hours of power reserve. The Squale does offer a very impressive water resistance of 500 meters. The Squale is also a bit more expensive than the Christopher Ward at $1,150.

Looking at these four other watches you can see that the Christopher Ward C60 Trident Reef offers and excellent value for the money. Specification and movement wise the C60 Trident Reef is right up there with the other watches while still offering the lowest price. There two watches with longer power reserves, but those brands benefit from having ETA as part of their ownership group. Also the Certina and Squale offer much more water resistance, but honestly recreational diving stops at 40 meters, so 200 meters is far more than anybody except a professional deep water diver would experience.



Closing Thoughts

So in the end is the Christopher Ward C60 Trident Reef for me? After wearing the watch exclusively for a good bit of time I can say that it really is. Even with its stainless steel case construction the watch still weighs very close to 100 grams, even being the larger 44 mm version. I'm a fanatic for most things orange and the C60 Trident Reef has orange in spades. Not only are the bezel and dial clad in orange, but so is the anodized aluminum sleeve surrounding the mid case. This gives the watch a very unique look that really strikes a chord with me.

The aquaflex rubber strap is extremely comfortable and I can imagine wearing the watch on a long trip to the beach. I keep thinking that I might prefer the watch on a white rubber strap, but I'm not the biggest fan of blue on a watch, so that probably has a lot to do with it. I feel all the hits of white on the dial might make a white rubber strap really pop. The Sellita movement inside is dead on accurate, which is something we seem to see from all the Sellita movements we test, especially those in Christopher Ward watches. The 120 click bezel is also a nice touch and Christopher Ward could have easily used a 60 click bezel, but they didn't and the bezel also has one of the nicest actions I've felt recently.

So would I recommend the C60 Trident Reef to somebody looking for a fun yet no nonsense diver? I would without a second thought. The C60 Trident Reef shows a nice return of Christopher Ward to the more affordable watches their brand was built off of. Even being so affordable, I can't tell that the brand cut any corners to keep the watch under one thousand dollars. Christopher Ward does also offer the watch in a host of dial colors and pretty much endless combinations of strap colors and it can even be ordered on a stainless steel bracelet. For those that prefer smaller watches, the C60 Trident Reef is also offered in a smaller 41 case diameter. There really isn't much to pause my recommendation of the watch, it really is a great all around dive watch.



Once again I'd really like to thank Christopher Ward for sending us this C60 Trident Reef to review. Like all of the watches we've reviewed from the brand including the least expensive to the higher horology pieces, the C60 Trident Reef has proved itself to be a well built and extremely accurate timepiece. I'm happy to see Christopher Ward get back to its roots and release a more obtainable yet fun and great looking piece, which I'm sure will make long term fans of the brand happy. This is yet another watch from Christopher Ward we will miss when it's time to send it back to England!

For more information about the C60 Trident Reef please visit : Christopher Ward

Technical Specifications

Reference Number: C60-44A3H31S0OO0-RLB

Retail Price: $850

Case Size: 44 mm

Lug to Lug: 51.3 mm

Thickness: 11.8 mm

Weight: 103 grams

Case Material: Stainless Steel and Anodized Aluminum

Bezel: Uni-Directional Anodized Aluminum with 120 Clicks

Strap: Aquaflex Aqua Blue Rubber Strap with Pin Buckle

Movement: Sellita Swiss Made Automatic SW200-1 Functions: Hours, Minutes and Seconds

Power Reserve: 38 Hours

Water Resistance: 200 Meters