Introducing The Christopher Ward C60 Lympstone

The Commando Training Centre at Lympstone is, even being charitable, a functional sort of place.  The grey, square concrete 1960s and ‘70s buildings overlooking the River Exe in Devon are where you go to train to become a Royal Marine Commando.  And half the people who try, fail; it’s one of the most brutal tests of mental and physical endurance in any armed force in the world.  So if you’re about to name your watch after the place, you’d better be pretty sure of what you’re about.  This is what Christopher Ward have done with their new C60 Lympstone.

The 42mm case, water resistant to 600m, is a pretty good start. Most divers go no deeper than 39m so 600m water resistance leaves a significant margin to play with.  The case is cut from marine grade (the wet stuff rather than the green beret type) stainless steel and weighs in at just 103g.  It’s grey DLC coated (a matching bracelet to fit the 22mm lugs is due later in September) and the caseback screws down and features a laser engraving of the Royal Marines’ crest.

The two crowns respectively wind and set the movement and rotate the inner compass bezel.  The latter, like the dial plots, hands, and ceramic bezel are all coated with Grade X1 GL C1 Super-LumiNova so, when you’re on exercise, up to your chin in mud, in a ditch in the middle of the night you’ll at least know where you are and how long until you can be somewhere else.  The dial is a light carbon fibre/resin composite.

In common with the rest of Christopher Ward’s Military Collection, the movement is a 28,800bph, 26 jewel, self-winding Sellita cal. SW200, but COSC-certified with a tolerance of -4/+6 seconds per day.  Quite accurate enough to ensure you’re the requisite five minutes early. 

The Lympstone is almost certainly far too smart a watch to wear on Bottom Field assault course, but it looks as though it’d survive it – and pretty much anything else you can chuck at it – without too much bother. Starting at $1,000 – Christopher Ward.