Kobold Soarway watches

The Kobold Soarway is a family of tool watches built around the Soarway case, which Kobold says took more than two years of research and development. The first watch in that case was the Polar Surveyor Chronograph, developed with the explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes and the master watchmaker Gerd-R. Lang.

The Soarway Diver (KD 212441) is a 316L steel diver, 15 mm high, that takes a 20 mm strap. It has a domed, anti-reflective sapphire crystal, a screw-down crown, a rotating dive bezel and 300 m of water resistance, and it runs on an ETA 2824. Kobold says a group of US Navy SEALs helped design it and test it underwater, that Fiennes also worked on the design, and that he took ten prototypes on the 2013 Antarctic Winter Traverse to test the watch in extreme cold. The Diver Safari (KD212445) is the same watch with a black DLC coating over the steel.

The Soarway Diver Seal (KD 1172142) is the thicker sibling. Kobold credits its design to the late actor James Gandolfini, a Kobold brand ambassador, and says the Seal has been in production since 2004. Its 17 mm case sits under an oversized rotating bezel and is rated to 1,000 m. A soft iron core shields the automatic ETA 2824 from magnetism, and the lug bars screw in place.

Beyond these divers, the Soarway case comes in other sizes and functions. The Large Diver (KD 832121-C) grows to 45.85 mm, and the Transglobe (KN 266853) is a 44 mm steel model with a dive bezel, on a bracelet. The Soarway GMT (KD 719121) is a 46 mm steel watch with a blue dial, limited to 100 pieces. The Soarway 44 (KD 1142142) has a slimmer 10 mm case, and the Soarway Chronograph (KD 030779) is a 36 mm piece in red gold with a white dial.