Spinnaker Introduces The Spence 300 Automatic Dive Watch

Spinnaker is the name of a type of headsail used for yachts or racing boats. It is also the name of a microbrand specializing in nautical-style watches. The brand’s team has been teasing its fanbase via the website and social channels that a new watch is due to launch in the coming days. Here’s a sneak peek at Spinnaker’s latest creation, the attractive and approachable Spence 300 automatic dive watch.

Spinnaker has been around for some years now with a reputation for its affordable watches among forum enthusiasts. It is one of a dozen stablemates in the brand portfolio operated by a UK-based company called Dartmouth Brands Limited. Spinnaker’s watches are made in the Far East. Rob wore one of its earlier dive watches for a week back in 2020, and you can read the review here.

Spence 300

Almost two years in the making, the soon-to-come Spence 300 is all about its case engineering. As the name suggests, the diver boasts water resistance to a depth of 300 meters. Not that anyone except the most daring divers would submerge that deep, but this is Spinnaker’s demonstration of technical prowess. The brand is keen to show us what it is capable of when it comes to creating high-performance diving watches.

Strong

Strong, slim, and functional were the keywords in the Spence 300’s design-and-development brief. The result is a 40mm diver measuring only 10.9mm in thickness and 100g in weight. Spinnaker claims it has created “one of the thinnest dive watches on the market”. The automatic timepiece comes in a 316L stainless steel case and a pill-box screw-lock crown. It also features a unidirectional coin-edged bezel with an aluminum insert to offer high corrosion resistance to seawater.

Slim

Powering the Spence 300 is the reliable Miyota 9039 automatic movement. The Japanese manufacturer introduced this three-hand 24-jewel caliber to its premium category in 2018. The 3.9mm slim profile of this movement facilitates the diver’s svelte and functional design concept. It operates at 28,800vph (4Hz) and provides a 42-hour power reserve.

Functional

The Spence 300’s dial and bezel deliver high legibility in five color variations — black, blue, brown, green, and red. They feature chunky geometric printed indexes and numerals in 10-minute graduations. The hand stack is in three styles for immediate differentiation — a stocky arrowhead hour hand, an elongated triangular minute hand, and a moon-style seconds hand. Luminescence is prominent on the dial markers and hands thanks to the use of Super-LumiNova, which provides optimum visibility in dark conditions.

While you can find the brand and model names shown on the dial, there is no date window on this model. A sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating sits on top, offering scratch resistance and visual clarity. The Spence 300 comes with a solid stainless steel bracelet and a genuine leather strap for a 20mm lug width. The bracelet is secured with a folding buckle with a pushbutton safety lock, while the leather strap is equipped with a no-nonsense pin buckle.

The Spinnaker spin

When I said the Spence 300 was approachable at the start of this article, it was thanks to its rather familiar and pleasing aesthetics. The brand admits its designs draw inspiration from iconic dive watches but have Spinnaker’s own touches. For the Spence 300, the brand has “taken the classic lines of a tidy, performance-driven diver watch and engineered it to a new level of excellence”.

The watch should not only look good but also be built to last. As such, Spinnaker says it “tests the watches rigorously in [its] own watchmaking labs”, which extend to the oceans around them. For this level of effort and quality, the price is still rather reasonable. The Spence 300 will retail for €600 and will be available directly from Spinnaker.

For more information, a discount code, and early access to the Spence 300 launch, visit the Spinnaker website.