Spinnaker Introduces The Spence 300

Skin divers are one of the most versatile types of watches that can take up a spot in the watch box. They’re lightweight, take up a smaller footprint on the wrist, and are thin enough so that they can easily slip under a shirt cuff. And the best part, they do all of this without sacrificing water resistance. Recently and in under-the-radar fashion, Spinnaker released a watch that checks all the boxes of what to look for in a proper skin diver, and then some. Let us introduce to you the Spinnaker Spence 300.

Without wasting any time, we’ll get into the nitty gritty starting with the case specs. The Spence 300 stainless steel case sans crown guards measures 40mm wide and 48mm lug to lug. Slightly larger specs for a traditional skin diver. That said, the Spence 300 takes up true skin diver form with its 10.9mm case thickness. Speaking from experience, the thinnest dive watch I own is the Seiko SNE573 Solar Diver which comes in at 10.6mm in thickness and wears perfectly due to that slim case profile. With a case that is just a few millimeters thicker in the Spence 300, you get a watch that is rated up to 300 meters of water resistance (100 meters more than the Seiko SNE573) and has an automatic mechanical movement. Speaking of movements, the Spinnaker Spence 300 houses the Miyota 9039 equipped with 42 hours of power reserve, hacking seconds and hums at 28,800 bph.

There isn’t a lack of options when it comes to dial colors for the Spence 300. Spinnaker offers up a straightforward classic black dial diver with their Pitch Black model. The Hickory Brown is another solid dial color offering, but has more of a warmer tone and patinated effect on the dial markers. The remaining three dial colors have a more vibrant and dynamic punch to them and come in what Spinnaker calls an Indigo Blue, Sea Green and Crimson Red. These dials are adorned with a fumé impression and add an outgoing personality to what you would normally expect from a traditional skin diver.

The Indigo Blue variant in particular really stands out and highlights certain attributes of the dial. Take for instance, the bold sea-foam green hour markers, contrasting orange pip on the seconds hand and the broad arrow hand set. Each model comes with a matching colored bezel with lumed zero marker. There are also lumed minute markers on the bezel. First on the five minute marker, then at every ten minute interval until the fifty five minute marker. The result is a peculiar, but symmetrical appearance when the zero marker aligns at twelve.

The Spence 300 comes on a stainless steel bracelet secured by a fold over buckle and push button clasp. The diver will also be accompanied by an additional leather strap (just like Spinnaker, I too condone throwing a diver on leather). Spinnaker packages all of this up in a nifty zip-up travel case. Bonus points for practical packaging.

The Spinnaker Spence 300 is available now for $650 and most certainly adds to the growing list of slender dive watches at an economic price point. Spinnaker