Tag Archives: Dive watch

Isotope Hydrium Burnt Tangerine

If you have looked back on my previous holiday posts on Instagram you notice my bronze Pinion Axis features heavily, this was for two reasons, firstly the robustness of the watch and the effect of the sea water on the case.

With the arrival of my holidays this year I risked producing similar posts all over again. Luckily, I had noticed several images of the Isotope Hydrium range from my friend Jose and it occurred to me that they would make an ideal alternative for the beach. I dropped a note Jose and a loaner arrived, a limited edition very visible Hydrium Burnt Tangerine. A perfect summer colour. The perfect beach watch.

First impressions straight out of the box was – gosh this feels weighty. The perfect sensation for a serious dive watch, this is a tough watch. It comes with a super comfortable quick release FKM rubber strap, so nice in fact that I was not at all tempted to swap it out to experiment with alternatives. Usually,the first thing I habitually play with on dive watches is the bezel. The Hydrium has a robust uni-directional sapphire crystal/stainless steel bezel with 120 clicks, a feature that came in very handy for timing my daily swim.

The Landeron 24 automatic movement is almost completely silenced by the case, giving you almost the sensation of having a quartz watch on your wrist. Landeron is not a name that we are all familiar, the 24 automatic is designed as a replacement for the increasingly difficult to source ETA 2824-2. Then when you turn the watch over you find this really nicely decorated solid caseback. Personally, I not a great fan of display backs especially on dive watches, as you can see this one is a worth turning the watch over for.

Solid Caseback

Of course on of the most important design elements of any watch is the dial and this is where this watch distinguishes itself from other dive watches with the now familiar Isoptope details on the two layered dial, in particular the subtle Isoptope lacrime. Over the dial the is a domed sapphire crystal that I personally much prefer to the flat crystals.

Finally, returning to the strap. Isotope have always given particular attention to straps and this one is finished of with a very solid Isotope branded buckle.

Isotope buckle

Technical Specifications

  • Micro-blasted case, 316L stainless steel
  • Case diameter 40mm X 48mm (with lugs)
  • Height 12.9mm (14.9mm with double domed Sapphire Crystal)
  • Hydrium Exclusive Stainless steel screw-down case back 
  • Uni-directional sapphire crystal/Stainless Steel bezel with 120 clicks 
  • Anti-reflective crystal sapphire
  • Screw-down crown at 3 o’clock
  • Isotope “i” hands and indexes with Super-LumiNova®
  • Water-resistance 300m / 30 atm / 1000 ft
  • 22mm Quick-release FKM strap with signed micro-blasted Steel Buckle

Swiss Mechanical Movement

  • Swiss Landeron 24, self-winding
  • Power reserve 40 hours
  • 28 Jewels, 28800A/h
  • Accuracy -12/+12 s/day
  • Decorated + Customised rotor

Cost – £729 (limited to 100 pieces)

The Range

Alongside the Burnt Tangerine Isoptope produced several other versions, the “conventional” Blue Night and two even more individual the Hydrium X “Will Return” and the “The Judge”. Of these only the Judge can be ordered from the website.

Blue Knight
“Will Return”
Judge

So in conclusion I have to say the Hydrium Burnt Tangerine fitted the brief of “beach/summer watch” perfectly. So perfectly I kept putting off sending it back to Jose, until I was prompted. These watches are selling out quickly so jump now if you want one for next summer.

Hampshire Watches

As someone born and brought up in Hampshire this is a phase I could not have ever imagined writing, but there are now at least two Hampshire based watch companies, Hamtun, from Southampton and Zero West actually from my birthplace, Emsworth.

The first of theses two companies to come to my notice was Hamtun a brand that started as a kickstarter project in 2015. I was honestly curious about the brand name which immediatly made me suspect a connection to the city of Southampton, 20 miles from the village I grew up in. For us Southampton was always the other city in Hampshire, but I still felt a connection. On investigating the brand I went on to discover that Hamtun was the name of the original settlement that grew into Southampton.

Hamtun was founded by two friends lead by co-founder and designer Ross Davis, the aim was to create the watches that they wanted to own but, as family men with normal jobs, could not afford. By cutting out all of the extra layers of bureaucracy and by working to sensible margins, they set out to make high quality watches.

Their first watch was the H1, a fairly classic looking dive watch in titanium. The 41 mm case houses the tried and trusted Seiko NH35a automatic movement.The H1 sold out very quickly. I still have not managed to get hold of one to review despite several attempts at trying to meet Ross at Waterloo station.

The H1 is no longer available, it has evolved into the Kraken H2. It has been joined by the Nanok which is Hamtun’s answer to a famous Swiss brand’s Day-Date at a significantly lower price point.

Then having established themselves Hamtun have recently launched a “value” brand Phantom, offering a regular diver style watch with a Seiko NH35a movement for a remarkable £262.80. ( an amusingly precise price point). For more news I recommend visiting the Hamtun website.

This brings me on to the revelation that after finding a watch company from my birth county one turns up in the town of my birth, the small coastal town of Emsworth founded by two friends in 2016.

Zero West work out of their converted boathouse, over looking the mill pond.The site itself providing inspiration for their watches. The boathouse was formerly owned by George Gray, a panelling expert from London who worked on Malcolm Campbell legendary Bluebird land-speed vehicles and the record breaking Railton Mobil Special, as well as creating the bodywork for the first Vanwall racing cars back in the 1950s. George’s talents also won him a contract to build Spitfire fuselages after the bombing of the factory in Southampton during World War Two, which he did at one of the many shadow factories set up along the south coast.

As well as the Longtitude model I reviewed (4/11/2018) The company currently offers a range of what can only be described as “Boy’s Own” watches principly drawing inspiration from 20th century British automotive and aviation history.

The majority of the watches are based on the unique Zero West 44mm case design housing either an ETA 2824 or Valjoux 7750 automatic movement.

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S2 Spitfire

Above is an example of the aircraft themed watches the Spitfire S2. This watch uses metal recovered from an actual Spitfire pulled out of Poole Harbour.

CR-1 Cafe Racer

The automotive styled models include two chronographs, the more traditionally styled CR-1 above and the “bulls head” style Landspeed, below. Both watches using Valjoux 7750 automatic movements.

Land Speed

Zero West’s watches range from £2200 to £3300 for the chronographs. Details of all the watches can be found at the Zerowest website.

These are the only two current Hampshire watch brands I have come across, I would love to discover more. In the meantime, despite being at different price points, as well as being from the same county these two companies are run by incredibly enthusiastic owners. Best of luck to both.

I am now starting to think of other British counties that are home to multiple watch brands. The first that springs to mind is Oxfordshire with Bremont and Pinion. I will get digging.