Girard-Perregaux Sea Hawk Pro 1000m reviewed

Recently Girard-Perregaux released a new version of the Sea Hawk Pro 1000m and although they changed only a few details, these are the details that matter. The new orange ‘plonguer’ style minute hand is adds a lot to the imago of Girard-Perregaux’s esteemed dive watch. We got a few weeks to test it with some serious desk diving.

Most luxurious dive watches don’t even come close to water, let alone the demanding environment for which they where designed. Although they would withstand the tough circumstances at great depths for sure, it’s most likely the majority of these dive watches do the most of their diving behind office desks; desk diving. We tested the Girard-Perregaux Sea Hawk Pro 1000m in these (not so tough) circumstances.

Overall appearance

The Sea Hawk Pro 1000m looks big at first, but when strapped on the wrist it actually wears very comfortable and it doesn’t look too big. The case, dial, diver’s bezel, rubber strap and folding clasp are all designed for a rugged, tough and bold diver’s watch and the finish of everything on this watch is absolutely superb. The overall impression of this watch is that everything seems perfectly balanced and harmonious. Let’s take a closer look…

Features

No doubt about it that the Girard Perregaux Sea Hawk Pro 1000m is made for diving and everything, all features, are designed with this in mind. There is a uni-directional diver’s bezel, a helium escape valve, a screw down crown, a rubber strap with adjustable folding clasp. These typical dive watch features are designed with great attention for detail and style and this sets the Sea Hawk 1000m so much apart from many other dive watches. The Sea Hawk indicates hours, minutes, seconds, the remaining power reserve and the date.

The new Sea Hawk 1000m has a stainless steel inlay in the dive bezel, with raised numerals. The previous version had a rubber bezel inlay.

Like the name already indicates this Sea Hawk Pro 1000m can be used to a depth of 1000 meters. So it can be used by professional divers who go to great depths in diving bells, where mixtures of gas are being used for the divers to survive. This mixture of gas usually contains helium and when the diver submerges, helium expands faster than it can escape from within the watch. Hence the helium escape valve.

Another for dive watches typical feature is the diver’s bezel. The sides have a very good grip, which is especially necessary when diving with dive gloves in colder waters.

Dial/hands

The matte black dial is very suitable for a dive watch and has a big contrast with the other elements on and above the dial. The centrally positioned hour and minute hand, the hour indicators and the hand of the power reserve indicator have applied luminous material for night visibility. As you can see it’s easy to read the time when it’s dark or even when it’s pitch black… like at great depths or when you go for a night dive!

The luminous dot in the dive bezel, indicates the start of your dive. At least if you use the dive bezel for its actual purpose. If you leave the dive bezel with the luminous dot at the 12 o’clock position it helps to identify the 12 o’clock position when reading the time with sleepy eyes during the night. The power reserve indicator is also luminous, so you can verify the watch still has enough power reserve. Since the scale isn’t visible I’m not sure if this really adds something, but it doesn’t disturb either.

The only hand without super-luminova, the luminous material, is the seconds hand, that is shaped like an arrow and has an orange tip. The hour markers at 3 and 9 are wider and longer, while the marker at 6 is only wider and cut off in order to have enough space for the chapter ring around the power reserve indicator. The 12 o’clock marker is triangle shaped. Besides the chapter ring around the power reserve indicator, there’s a chapter ring around the off centre positioned seconds hand. On the matte black dial, the polished steel of both chapter rings is hard to neglect.

The date wheel is positioned fairly deep beneath the dial and is visible through the date window, positioned between 1 and 2 o’clock. One of those gorgeous details of this Girard-Perregaux, are the brushed steel sides of the date window, that can also be found on other Sea Hawk models and the Girard_Perregaux World Wide Time Control (or short WW.TC). The cool new feature of the newly designed Sea Hawk Pro 1000m is a gorgeous minute hand that refers to dive watches from the 1960’s and 1970’s. An orange ‘plonguer-style’ minute hand.

Case/strap

The previous version of the Sea Hawk 1000m had a brushed mid case. Girard-Perregaux decided to polish the parts facing up, like the lugs and the crown protector. Combined with the new stainless steel bezel inlay, it gives the watch more luxurious looks compared to the previous model. The case is 44 mm in diameter, excluding the prominent crown protector, and 15 mm tick. Including the ‘signature’ crown protector the diameter is roughly 50 mm, but this is absolutely no problem for those with a relatively small wrist. Due to the sloping lugs and rubber strap the Sea Hawk fits perfectly around my wrist (17.5 mm) and is a pleasure to wear.

The rubber strap is actually perfectly balanced between flexibility and stiffness. Combined with the adjustable folding clasp, it makes it easy to adjust the strap to the size of your wrist in all circumstances. One of the usual disadvantages of rubber straps is that yo can’t resize them; they have to be cut to fit your wrist. This is no different on the Sea Hawk, however the adjustable folding clasp makes it possible to fine adjust the strap when for instance the weather gets warmer and your wrist gets a bit thicker. And of course when you go deep sea diving and want to strap the Sea Hawk over your wetsuit.

Movement

Inside the Sea Hawk 1000m ticks the in-house caliber Girard-Perregaux GP033R0, that was also used in the previous version of the Sea Hawk. Caliber GP033R0 is based on caliber GP3300, with an added power reserve indicator and a de-central seconds hand in stead of a central seconds hand. The movement with automatic winding, has 27 jewels, 46 hours of power reserve and has a frequency of 28,800 vibrations per hour.

The verdict – pros and cons

When the Sea Hawk 1000m was launched, the new design features immediately caught our attention and especially the orange ‘plonguer-style’ minute hand where enough reason to take a closer look. The orange minute hand, other orange style elements, the new polished lugs and crown protector and the stainless steel bezel inlay all look very good and add to the Sea Hawk’s robust and luxurious look and feel.

The size of the case (44 mm in diameter and 15 mm thick) was reason to worry, but as soon as the Sea Hawk was on the wrist all concern faded away. The Sea Hawk appeared to be a very comfortable watch and when the test period was over it was extremely difficult to take the watch of to return it to Girard-Perregaux.

One thing and one thing only somewhat bugged me about the Sea Hawk… the shiny chapter rings around the power reserve indicator and seconds hand come at the expense of the legibility. I can imagine that if these chapter rings where black, flat, on the slightly rough matte black dial, they would be pronounced enough to be noticed and not interfere with legibility.

The new Sea Hawk 1000m wears excellent, looks great and runs and performs perfectly. During the test period the deviation was minimal and well with COSC specs. The new Sea Hawk looks great with casual or sporty cloths and similar occasions. It’s not made for wearing with a suit, but Girard-Perregaux has more than enough timepieces that are perfect for more formal occasions.

For more info you can visit the Girard-Perregaux website or official Facebook page.