Hull Chronograph SP-5068-02
Spinnaker has made a quick jump in popularity, mainly by offering a wide range of affordable sport watches with workhorse movements at great prices. If you’ve been involved in the social media watch community, chances are you’ve run into the brand one way or another. The brand’s bread and butter are dive watches. This is what make’s today’s watch special. Today, we are review a chronograph variant of a popular dive watch: The Spinnaker Hull Chronograph.
The Spinnaker Hull is one of their most popular dive watches. It features a great case, textured dial, circle indices, and great lume. The Spinnaker Hull Chronograph takes the DNA of its namesake, and it expands it to a fantastic chronograph piece.
The Watch:
Diameter: 42mm
Thickness 15mm
Lug Width: 22mm
Movement: Japanese VK73
Dial: Blue, Sandwich and Textured
Strap: Leather
Water Resistance: 10atm
Crown and Pusher: Screwdown
Crystal: AR Coated Domed Mineral
Looking at the specifications watch is on the bigger side, but definitely not oversized. At 42mm, it’s a size with a lot of presence, while avoiding going into Goliath territory. At 15mm, this is a chubby watch, though some of that is the domed crystal. Size wise, it is a beefy watch, but one that is wearable by most wrists.
The Highlights:
The steel tachymeter and screwdown pushers allude to the great aesthetics of the legendary Daytona. This is something that not only adds to the water resistance of a watch, but creates a very sporty look, finding the perfect balance between chronograph and dive watch.
In my opinion, the sandwich dial is the star of the show. In short, a sandwich dial is one where two dials are stacked on top of each other. The top dial has cutouts where the indices and markers are to be showcased. The contrast of the bottom dial make the cutouts pop and brings them to life. Panerai, in my opinion, is the absolute master of this technique. Check out their line of watches, and you’ll see this done to perfection. But this technique is definitely one not often seen in watches, as it adds to production cost and increases the probability of quality issues. The Hull Chronograph executes this beautifully, having the lower dial showcase the indices, while applying lume to them, to make the dial pop.
To add to this depth, the texted top dial creates a fantastic look. While it is a sandwich dial, the top’s texture and the bottom’s lume adds to this design.
The large date is something I loved from this design. It’s something that was not found on the original Hull but fits right at home on the Chronograph variant. It furthers the racing-sports them and simply adds a complication that isn’t used enough in sports watches.
