The Seawolf developed a good reputation with soldiers, sailors and pilots during the Vietnam war, which gave it a certain cachet as a rugged alternative to the much more expensive Omega and Rolex watches of the time. The Oceanaire is a descendent of the original Zodiac Seawolf, a favorite dive watch of the 1960’s that was popular with Navy divers and adventurers throughout the world. The Oceanaire is a fantastically solid piece and, at the bargain-basement prices it’s currently going for, I’ll even say it ranks up there as one of the best current watch deals to be found. Well, I’m here to tell you they’re wrong. But, they have their firm opinions about the watch. What you’ll find is that something like, oh, 99.9% of the detractors do not own an Oceanaire and probably have never seen one. This is a movement which, by the way, meets Swiss regulations to carry the “Swiss Made” imprint, which should end all arguments right there. It’s all a matter of degrees, and whether or you believe in the myths developed by the watch manufacturers’ marketing departments. It’s rumored to be a Swiss-massaged version of the Chinese Sea-Gull ST16, but so far, this heritage hasn’t been confirmed, at least to my satisfaction anyway.īut even if it was, so what? There probably isn’t a single watch manufacturer in the world that makes all of its parts “in-house”. It’s possible that like many other human biases, ignorance is to blame, because of the mysterious origins of the CL-888. The detractors will immediately focus on the Claro-Semag CL-888 movement that powers the Oceanaire as an issue, as if they’d really know the difference between it and any other basic automatic movement. Starting an Oceanaire thread on any watch forum is like poking a stick in a hornet’s nest.
Or maybe it’s all of the above.īut the fact is that many watch collectors sniff when they hear the words “Zodiac” and “Oceanaire” used in the same sentence. Maybe it’s plain old watch snobbery or even jealousy, or the use of an other-than-ETA movement. Maybe it’s the dozens of Zodiac quartz watches that have flooded the market in recent years, which may have tainted the brand in the minds of some collectors. Let me start right off by saying that the Zodiac Oceanaire gets little respect, and that’s just plain wrong.
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