Rado Captain Cook watches

The Rado Captain Cook began in 1962 as a small dive watch named after the 18th-century British explorer James Cook. Rado had made water-resistant watches since its Green Horse series of 1958. It stopped making the Captain Cook in 1972 and turned to high-tech ceramic, and the name stayed dormant until Baselworld 2017 brought it back as the HyperChrome Captain Cook.

The 37 mm models are the faithful ones. The 37.3 mm steel case is about 11 mm thick, with straight lugs, a box-shaped sapphire crystal, a ceramic bezel insert where the original had aluminium, three seahorses on the caseback and a crown that does not screw down, so it is rated to 100 metres. The anchor below 12 turns freely on the dial. Inside is the ETA-based calibre C07.611, an automatic with an 80-hour reserve. The 2017 launch edition, with a sunburst dial on brown leather, was limited to 1,962 pieces after the original's year; the regular model wears a black dial on a steel bracelet. The Ghost Captain, a grey-dial edition named for The Rake and Revolution, is limited to 150 pieces.

The 45 mm version is the modern diver of the family: a titanium case, applied luminous markers, a narrower hour hand and a screw-down crown that lifts the rating to 200 metres. The 42 mm line followed in 2019 as the larger take on the classic look, with ceramic bezels and a beads-of-rice bracelet, and comes in steel or in bronze with blue, brown or green dials. The 43 mm models move to a high-tech ceramic case with a black dial, one of them paired with rose gold.

Between them the choice is size and case metal: the 37 mm for 1960s proportions, the 42 mm for more wrist presence, the 45 mm titanium for the deeper rating and the 43 mm for ceramic.