If you follow watch culture at all, you’ll soon realize that “watch people” take their stuff very seriously. Maybe that’s why Christopher Ward is a breath of fresh air.
with the release of C60 Pool Diver ($1,475 with a steel Bader bracelet, and $1,250 with an Aquaflex rubber strap), Christopher Ward offers a super-functional watch with a sense of humor. It’s self-deprecating in ways that some brands try to do. And realistically, this is more in line with how most people actually use a dive watch.
The Pool Diver is the follow-up to the hugely popular Desk Diver watch, which launched in 2024 and sold out almost immediately. Like the Desk Diver, which really highlights the serious nature of dive watches that will obviously never get wet, the Pool Diver nods to the fact that a very small percentage of dive watches ever actually go scuba diving. Let’s be real, guys – that’s what dive computers are for.
However, unlike the Desk Diver, the Pool Diver gives some silly, borderline functional tools to poolside loungers. For example, both the dial and bezel offer timekeeping increments for “Sunbath,” “Relax,” “Contemplate,” and “Read.” Of course, it wouldn’t be Christopher Ward without some levity, so “contemplation” is paired with “rethinking life choices”, and “sunbathing” is aligning with “nice tan/skin damage (ratio)”. Overall, it’s fun, light, and exactly the kind of atmosphere many people want on vacation.
Christopher Ward Pool Diver: Still a legit watch
Although Pool Diver is a light-hearted watch, don’t let its sense of humor fool you. It’s still a seriously capable watch.
Powered by a Sellita SW200-1 automatic movement with -5/+12 seconds per day accuracy, it packs 200 meters of water resistance, a stainless steel case with white ceramic shroud and bezel, and an antireflective sapphire crystal. Wildly, it also packs a helium escape valve, a feature rarely seen in anything other than very high-end, specialty dive watches.
Why helium escape valve? Well, the watches have helium escape valves to prevent damage during saturation diving. In deep-sea hyperbaric chambers, divers breathe a helium-oxygen mixture. Because helium atoms are incredibly small, they seep into the watch case. During decompression, trapped gas expands faster than it can escape, which can damage the watch crystal.
You certainly won’t need it at the pool, and it’s an almost comical inclusion, like adding a supercharger and four-point harness seatbelts to a Toyota Corolla. Self-awareness is delicious.
Finally, you have an exceptionally unique unidirectional bezel (no time markings here), a highly legible face with Super-LumiNova Grade X1 BL C1-filled hands for low-light legibility, and even a scuba diver holding a mocktail engraved on the closed caseback.
But possibly my favorite subtle touch is the message it conveys by far, depending on the watch’s intended purpose. “Pool diver,” it says. “How to take the pressure off the 9-5. Please, don’t drink and dive.”
pre order Before June 24th to get this limited edition on your wrist.
