The CWC Royal Navy Diver - A Short Introduction

I’d like to use this post to introduce the latest addition to my (mostly military inspired) watch collection. The CWC Royal Navy Diver (Automatic).

The Cabot Watch Company (CWC) was founded in 1972 by Ray Mellor to supply watches to the British military and other government organisations. In 1997 it was bought by Silvermans, and the company continues to supply watches and CWC straps to British Forces.*

As CWC has produced, and still produces, numerous models over the years it would take us too far from this posts subject to go over all of them. But here’s a small overview of their most notable issued models. 

The "W10" Mechanical General Service Watch.

Source: Hairspring

Issued from 1976 to 1980 to all the branches of the British military. 

The “G10” General Service - Quartz.

Source: Watchuseek User "longstride"

Issued from 1980 to  2006, and the first quartz watch to be issued to the British military.

The “Fab Four” Chronograph.

Source: Bulangandsons

Using a Valjoux 7733 and signature asymmetric case, this bi-compax chronograph is instantly recognisable (1973 - 1982). 

The SBS Diver.

Source: Ablogtowatch

The SBS diver is possibly the quintessential CWC watch; whilst most other CWC watches and clocks have antecedents in other models, or have been made or supplied by other brands, only CWC has ever produced the black day-date dive watch for the British military.*

Which takes us to the subject of today’s post: 

The Royal Navy Diver. 

CWC won the contract to supply an automatic dive watch to replace the Rolex milsub in 1980, and in 1980 and 1981 they supplied watches with a dial similar to the Omega Seamaster 300 from the 1960s and an acrylic bezel insert. In 1983, the watch was changed to a quartz movement and was issued sporadically up until 2000, with most of the watches being issued during the 1990s.  The case was similar to the Monnin case popularised by the Heuer reference 844 from the late 1970s, although with some small variations across the years.

The watch began to be replaced in the early 2000s with the SBS watch, which became the standard issue of dive watch for anyone in the British military; although the RN watches continued in use for some years, when the RN watches were returned to stores or were broken, a new SBS was issued instead. In all, over the 20 years between 1980 and 2000, CWC supplied probably around 3,000 dive watches to the Royal Navy.*

Currently the Royal Navy Diver is no longer issued to the British Armed Forces, but can still be bought directly from CWC in different configurations. Most notably the 1980 RN Divers Automatic originally issued to RN Clearance Divers. And different version of the RN Diver in both automatic and quartz, date or no date and with Super-Luminova or faux Tritium dials. 

The particular example I recently added to the collection was part of a limited run CWC did back in 2002, in which they took NOS Tritium dials and put them into the MK1 variant of the RN case. This means the watch uses a 60 click uni-directional bezel, mineral glass and has 300 meters of water resistance. The sides of the case are fully polished, while the top of the lugs show a fine brushing. 

Inside an ETA 2824-2 Swiss automatic mechanical movement is used, which works perfectly as it’s a reliable and strong movement suited for this type of watch. The movement does feature a ghost date, which was also the case with earlier issued RN Divers to cut cost. 

The dimensions of the case are as follows: 45mm diameter including crown (41mm excluding crown), 47mm lug to lug, 20mm lug width. Bezel diameter is 40mm and the case measures 11,6mm thick. The short lug to lug, relatively small dial and Monnin style case makes the watch wear quite a bit smaller than you’d expect. I’d say it wears closer to a 39 - 40mm watch on wrist. 

Another key feature of many issues watches is the fact that they use fixed spring bars which have been welded to the case. This was a requirement from the MOD to make sure no watches were lost due to failing spring bars. A modern day example of this is the Tudor Pelagos FXD. In day to day this means the watch can only be worn on pass-through straps like nato’s and MN straps for example. Luckily this fits the watch nicely and I personally wear my divers on nato’s most of the time anyway. 

I’ve only had the CWC for a few days now, but I can already tell it’s going to be a permanent piece of the collection. I can’t wait to take it out on adventures, the first big one being a road trip through Namibia next year, and seeing how the ageing tritium dial progresses over the next few years. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this write-up and feel free to ask me questions!

Laurens.

All text ending with ‘’ has been taking from https://cwcaddict.com/, a great place for anyone wanting to read more about these watches.

*All photo’s are taking by me unless otherwise stated.