Spinnaker Cahill New England

We’ve been really impressed with the latest watches from Spinnaker – they offer great quality at a good price and knock most high street fashion brands out of the water. Their latest, the Spinnaker Cahill New England, is a diver’s watch with some cool colour choices.

A Week on the Wrist – Spinnaker Cahill New England Review

The Spinnaker Cahill New England comes in the standard Spinnaker packaging: a blue cardboard box with a white outer. Nothing fancy, but tool watches do not need fancy presentation cases. It’s perfectly functional, if uninspiring.

Case

The watch has a 43mm IP (ion plated) case – black over a stainless steel base. I’m always a little worried that PVD watches will scratch, so this watch will need to be kept safe as once the stainless steel shows through it will quickly look tatty. It wears smaller than I expected for a 43mm watch, perhaps the black colour is slimming. It’s 16mm thick but again wears like a smaller watch.

Sapphire glass on the front is a welcome upgrade from the “standard” Spinnakers, as is the Seiko NH35 movement which beats at 21,600bph and is reliable and well-loved by budget automatic watch enthusiasts. The Spinnaker black rotor looks good in this colour combination, even though the movement is not decorated. The screw down crown has well-machined knurling and is easy to unscrew and manipulate. The 120-click bezel is smooth and precise to operate. Overall, a very well-built watch.

Dial and hands

The dial comprises of a base layer, which is printed with a cross-hair and small minute markers, plus applied metallic digits for the hours. The dial is surrounded by a raised chapter ring with hour markers. The date is nicely framed in a window, and the full dial and bezel is liberally applied with Swiss Luminova. It looks brilliant in low-light after a short exposure to sunlight. In daylight it’s a little hit and miss.

The metallic numbers can be hard to distinguish in low light, which makes the dial look a little flat. I’d have preferred more depth in the dial to emphasise the layers. It’s not bad but possibly looks better in the olive green or beige colour options. The hands are the Mercedes style, as used in the Rolex Submariner. Maybe a simpler stick design would have looked good, but at least they are white and so easy to read against the black dial.

Strap and Buckle

The strap is made of thick water-resistant leather. Water resistance is a nice touch and alleviates some of my concerns about putting a dive watch on a leather strap. The leather is firm but feels like it will break in nicely after wearing. Like the Spinnaker Tesei Titanium I reviewed I found the tang of the buckle needed a bit of work to get through the holes, but this strap is light years ahead of the one fitted to that watch.

Spinnaker Cahill. New England – Video Review

What I Liked

  • The specifications and build quality are phenomenal (and not just for the asking price)
  • The design is attractive and I like the unusual colour choices
  • The Seiko NH35 movement is a great choice, far better than the Miyota 8215 that Spinnaker often use

What I Didn’t Like

  • The IP plating is not for everyone and any scratches you pick up will look really bad
  • The dial could be more legible, it’s very much dominated by greys and blacks
  • Although the dial is multi-layered, the layers are not very pronounced so it looks a little flat given the dominance of black

Spinnaker Cahill New England – The WRUK verdict

I really liked the Spinnaker Cahill New England. There are two other colour options: an olive green (which I really like) and a beigey-green. The lighter colours seem to address the concerns I have over legibility but I must admit the “stealth” look is really cool. If you are looking for a diver’s watch with a full-lumed bezel then this is a good choice for the money.

The three variants of the Spinnaker Cahill New England watch

Buy a Spinnaker Cahill New England

You can buy Spinnaker watches at their website – and don’t forget to use our 20% off discount code MICHAELRICHMOND20 at the checkout when you buy a Spinnaker watch.

 

By Mike Richmond

Mike spends what little spare time he has writing for WRUK; and what little money he makes building up his collection of timepieces.