Girard-Perregaux Sea Hawk Modern Review

No doubt, a modern Sea Hawk belongs to a GP collection. It is one of if not the longest running line without (much) interruption since the 1940ies and the modern Sea Hawk just provides for a versatile sports/water watch and as the next summer will be there soon, no question I need a Sea Hawk in my c

No doubt, a modern Sea Hawk belongs to a GP collection. It is one of if not the longest running line without (much) interruption since the 1940ies and the modern Sea Hawk just provides for a versatile sports/water watch and as the next summer will be there soon, no question I need a Sea Hawk in my collection.

However, I have also struggled with the modern Sea Hawk. The look I always liked but I had a modern Sea Hawk coming into and then out of my collection a few times.

I started of with the Sea Hawk to John Harrison with the white dial. Very nice looking watch but with two flaws:

1.     Didn’t really work for me as a beach/pool watch as it had a brown croco strap and a relatively sensitive white gold bezel insert. I didn’t like the look of the white dial in combination with a black rubber strap, so that did not work and trying other 3^rd party straps, NATO etc. never left me satisfied.

2.     Second issue was wrist comfort. The rather large 42mm steel case did weigh >130g and along with the deployment buckle was everything but comfortable. I did change to a pin buckle, which was a big improvement but still didn’t solve the weight in conjunction with the relatively long lugs.

I then did a mistake, I admit. I fell for another John Harrison Sea Hawk with a great waffle design black dial and I sold the white dial JH instead. 

Problem here was it was a solid white gold case. Now the look was absolutely stunning, but comfort was completely gone. Close to 190g in total it was way too much, even with the pin buckle. Needless to say, I was even less inclined to wear this watch on the beach. I sold it again and took the white dial John Harrison back as a trade.

So I was back to the white dial JH with the issues as above. I decided to part again from it and look at alternatives. The Sea Hawk III was released and the blue dial really gave me that “want it” feel. I tried it on a few times and surprisingly, it was more comfortable than its predecessor due to the changed strap/lug/buckle design. On the other hand, it had grown even further to 44mm and almost 14mm thick. While comfort was okay, I still had my doubts if this is right for me.

So I started to look for Sea Hawk IIs again. There was a 40mm version of the Sea Hawk II but they are hard to find, unless you don’t mind a BMW logo on it, which I do mind! As an alternative, I also looked at Titanium case Sea Hawks in 42mm, figuring that size will still be okay and the weight is going to be much much less.

You can imagine my excitement, when I saw a Titanium Sea Hawk II with the same waffle dial (6546) as I had on my white gold John Harrison. Centre seconds of course instead of small seconds but still same dial design. What gives that dial version special character is that the numerals and indices are not printed lume but applied polished metal and of course the waffle or rather pyramid pattern on the dial.

The total weight including rubber strap and steel folding buckle is at 97g and feels very light. Okay, the steel folding buckle is still not made for my not so big wrist and I already ordered a matching Titanium pin buckle. With that, I’m sure it will be very comfy and even lighter.

Now I have a proper beach / pool watch. Not sure how sensitive the Titanium case is going to be for scratches compared to steel. The grey look of the case is really cool, even I’m usually not into Titanium watches. What is interesting is that the case colour is very similar to the white gold version, which was more of a grey than white gold.

So let’s see if this is now a keeper.

CC