This new watch delivers premium touches at a (relatively) accessible price

Picture the scene. You’re cruising above the Pacific, three and a half hours into a thirteen-hour trip: Sydney to Los Angeles. As you pass above Fiji, the cabin crew announces that you just crossed the international date line, and you’d better remember to set your watch back by a day before you land.

You’re no fool: you wore your GMT watch, a piece, typically with an extra hour hand, designed to help you track time in two different places, for exactly this reason. But as you make the necessary adjustments, you realise that having fixed the time, the date’s still wrong. Instant air rage. Admittedly, that might have more to do with your decision to watch Captain America: Brave New World, but your shame as a watch geek for packing the “wrong” kind of GMT will be enduring.

If this all sounds fairly ridiculous, that’s because it is, but there is undeniably a hierarchy of travel-time watches. Of course, every watch collector knows of the GMT, but most don’t realize there are two different types of the complication. And when you’re on the move, it’s easier to have what’s known as a “flyer” GMT (as opposed to a “caller,” which works best for anyone staying put at home and fielding Zoom calls from halfway round the world). The flyer GMT is the rarer of the two; it’s the type used by Rolex in its GMT-Master II (and Tudor in its Black Bay GMT), and it’s the reason to pay attention to Christopher Ward’s new flagship Sealander, the C63 GMT.

The British-Swiss brand’s third in-house movement is described by CEO Mike France as “a labor of pain, not a labor of love”, but it fulfills a long-held desire to be able to offer the same level of functionality as the most famous GMT watch ever to wear the name. What a “flyer” GMT specifically brings is the ability to set the “local” hour hand (the regular one) independently of the rest of the hands, forwards and backwards (and have the date jump forwards or backwards as required). This, the logic goes, is better for when your location frequently changes, rather than the location you are monitoring via your 24-hour GMT hand. (On a “caller,” the second, 24-hour hand is set in hour increments and can only push the date forward.)

It is a misconception that the Rolex GMT always worked this way—it was actually only introduced in 1983 with the arrival of the GMT-Master II (reference 16760)—but the setup has since become synonymous with Rolex’s approach, mostly because the solution is more complicated to develop and few other watchmakers were able or inclined to do it when the “caller” would suffice for most people.

Developing this more sophisticated version of the GMT continues Christopher Ward’s core mission of bringing luxury features to the brand’s more accessible universe. Consider its C1 Bel Canto, which brought the typically grand chiming feature to a watch that costs less than $4,000. CW’s new “flyer” GMT shares that spirit by bringing a variation of the complication that’s long been the province of high-end Swiss luxury brands like Rolex. Christopher Ward was founded on the idea that it should flaunt the rules long played by traditional watchmakers. The brand eschewed costly celebrity endorsements and passed those savings onto the customer by selling directly to them through its website. That ethos is what’s powering watches like its new GMT.

The Sealander, which costs $4,200 on a rubber strap and $4,350 on a stainless steel bracelet, could not be accused of owing a great debt to Rolex’s iconic designs. Instead, it draws from the same well as Christopher Ward’s previous in-house creations, the Bel Canto and C12 Loco, while tempering the amount of attention-grabbing flair on display (as befits a more serious and practical watch). Accordingly, a small section of the movement is on show through the dial, which contrasts with clean, contemporary typefaces and CW’s fondness for juxtaposed textures. A grained finish on the GMT track and subdials, the brand says, is the result of a new custom tooling process, and it looks premium.

The dial gives prominence to the watch’s five-day power reserve, indicated at nine o’clock, and a small seconds counter at six, with the date quite discreetly tucked in at three. On the reverse, an openworked tungsten rotor offers a clear view of the handsome, industrially finished CW-002 calibre, which Christopher Ward says has been in development since 2023. The main challenge, apparently, was adding the 23 new components for the GMT function without significantly expanding the watch (the finished item measures in at 40.5mm across, 14.5mm thick, and 48mm from lug to lug). It’s water-resistant to 100m, a certified chronometer (guaranteeing a high level of daily accuracy), and comes in two variants: a grey-and-orange dial or a black-and-teal dial. Most importantly, though, it’ll make your travels that much smoother—your choice of in-flight entertainment notwithstanding.