The Girard-Perregaux Sea Hawk Blue is a great ISO-certified diver

25 April 2014 | Girard-Perregaux , Diving Watches

Horbiter® turns cobalt blue and...orange! These colours embellish the diver that Girard-Perregaux presented last month at Baselworld 2014, and which give the Sea Hawk a new, stronger personality. A colour combination that is so different from what was marketed on the other Sea Hawk in the collection, which reminds us that we are looking at a true diver's watch.

The Girard-Perregaux Sea Hawk blue has all the features of the model that the manufacture revamped back in 2012: a “honeycomb” like dial, big luminous markers in the shape of a “snifter”, and a multi-faceted satin finish case. Three design features that are more than enough to distinguish this timepiece from the rest, and give it a strong presence on your wrist, the one some people look for when in search for a timepiece. With, in addition, an orange touch, used for the first 15 minutes of a dive time on the rotating bezel.

Other features are part of this collection from more than a generation. They are: the small seconds counter placed between 10 and 11 o' clock, the power reserve indicator in a half-moon shape placed at 6 o' clock, the screw-down black rubber crown set into a protrusion at 4 o'clock. I took a couple of pictures of the Girard-Perregaux Sea Hawk Blue and of the special edition Mission of Mermaids time piece just to show how you can dramatically change the look of this watch by just skillfully mixing the colours.

And I repeated the word “diver” often in this article not by pure coincidence. Although the case and dial are not engraved with this lettering, the Girard-Perregaux Sea Hawk blue (and the rest of the collection) is an ISO 6425 compliant timepiece. It means it meets international standards that allow it to be called a “diver's” watch. This is a feature that not all timepieces can boast (or that not all manufacturers clarify when presenting their timepieces), but that a connoisseur should be aware of, as it proves the quality of a timepiece. A diver's watch has to undergo a long series of rigorous tests, such as, for example, an actual test carried out in salt water; and these tests must be performed on the entire production.

What could we expect more from the Girard-Perregaux Sea Hawk blue? It needs one more small development: a ceramic inlay on the bezel and a bracelet unfastening device, which allows to easily replace it with the steel bracelet Girard-Perregaux has marketed, with hexagon shaped links, the same ones used for the honeycomb dial.