I’m not a bling guy. To me, a watch is a tool that needs only to keep time and somehow remain intact on my wrist in every conceivable condition. They usually don’t.
Over my career of fractured crystals, bad timing, broken pins and watches that sink like stones, I’ve gradually given up on high-priced status watches and gone cheap knowing that it will hurt less when they fly away into the drink. The watches I’ve been wearing of late scratch easily, don’t keep good time, and they don’t seem to ever go away unless I float-test them out of frustration. I have a drawer full of them.
Along comes the Reactor Atom Never Dark watch from the guy who engineered and marketed the surfer’s-favorite Shark Watch some years ago. The Reactor Atom addresses my bad attitude head on:
First: They’ve done away with the silly spring pins, which is the fatal flaw of the standard wrist watch strap system. The Atom has a free-floating lug system connected with threaded stainless steel rods and hex screws. The free-floating lugs curve more than usual and make for a better fit. The watch and strap don’t tend to rotate around my wrist like every other watch I’ve owned.
Second: The watch measures 42mm. Big enough to read at arm’s length, but not so big as to suggest you are hanging with Flavor Flav and the crew.
Third: The dial illuminates in pitch dark by Super Luminova material ($11,500/pound) for incredible clarity on nighttime tuna and striper fishing trips, overnight sailboat
races or diving.
Fourth: Each watch is tested to 660-foot pressure conditions for waterproofness. The crown has double sealing washers to inhibit water incursion even if the adjustment pin is accidentally left unscrewed after adjusting—tested to 100 feet.
Fifth: The crystal is made of a new K-1 mineral material, which is four-times more shatter resistant than sapphire-coated crystal. Sapphire crystal is still about 30 percent more scratch resistant.
Finally: The watch is Japanese stainless steel, the strap is metal-reinforced at the pin ends, the movement is Swiss, the total is assembled in China and it comes with a two-year warranty.
Available through limited retailers and online through Amazon for $400.
I ordered mine today.
—Joe Evans
