Gear Patrol

Even if your aquatic adventures never go beyond a beach snorkel, summer is still a great excuse to strap on a dive watch. Timepieces designed for wet work also happen to be perfect companions for backyard barbecues, weekend cabin trips and afternoon doubleheaders. It’s no wonder the dive watch remains one of the most popular timepiece categories, thanks to a decidedly sporty and casual vibe that wears well with board shorts and t-shirts, and an overbuilt ruggedness that can stand up to the inevitable scrapes of summer shenanigans and those impromptu night swims. But while there are a fleet of watches that try to capture the adventurous spirit of the diver, a select few go a little deeper. We round up seven of the best new ones for you here.

When Bremont offered to send their newest dive watch, the Supermarine 2000 ($5,900), for a review, I wanted to give this timepiece a fittingly rigorous program. After all, the company’s tagline is “Tested Beyond Endurance”, and some of its watches had accompanied adventurers on polar expeditions and round-the-world motorcycle journeys.

The Supermarine 2000 is arguably Bremont’s most rugged and capable watch to date. Its chronometer-certified movement is surrounded with a patented floating carrier, making it highly resistant to the effects of shock and vibration, a technology proven out in the company’s Martin-Baker watches, which have been tested on equipment used to test fighter jet ejection seat components. The movement is also encased inside an anti-magnetic Faraday cage which protects it against harmful magnetic influence. And while Bremont’s Supermarine 500 already boasted an impressive water resistance of 500 meters, the newest diver is rated to four times as deep. Of course, for a dive watch, all these features, while impressive on paper, are worthless if the watch doesn’t perform well underwater. So it was time to take it diving.

To say that the HMS Victory is a ship with history is akin to saying that the Dali Lama is a man with faith. Launched in 1765, she is the only remaining 18th Century ship left in the world, as well as the oldest commissioned warship. The Victory’s record at sea is the stuff of…

Reaching down to deploy the cupholder, you glance through your aviators at the chunky pilot’s watch on your wrist. You’re good for an on-time arrival. Suddenly, you spy a minivan bearing down on you at four o’clock so you quickly disable cruise control and switch into manual mode as you approach your exit. This is…

When we think of fine watches, our minds automatically shift to thoughts of the quaint villages and alpine vistas of Switzerland, or, increasingly, to Germany’s Glashütte region, where brands like A. Lange & Söhne and Glashütte Original hail. But what of merry old England? Given that some of the most renowned figures in horology have…

Britain has a wealth of history. With the exception of being responsible for Greenwich Mean Time, most of that history has little to do with the watch world. Bremont, from our account, seems ready and poised to change that by bringing a British timepiece to the table and producing some awe-inspiring timepieces. GP got to…