The new ceramic adventure watch by Rado
Rado’s updated Captain Cook plots a new course
It’s the maritime adventurer’s lot: the naming of “newly discovered” places and things. As in so many other areas, here Captain James Cook had flair. Australasian locations that owe their identities today to the 18th-century explorer include Young Nick’s Head, Cape Foulwind, Poverty Bay and Booby Island (named for the seabird). Less imaginatively we may also visit Mount Cook (New Zealand), Cook Strait (NZ again), Cook’s Harbour (Canada), Cook Island (Australia), Cook (Australia again) and
Captain Cook (Hawaii, USA). Cook’s name has also inspired the Captain Cook Multi-storey Car Park (Middlesbrough), a Captain Cook craft gin (your choice of “Rhubarb” or “Navigator First Voyage”, distilled in North Yorkshire), and a Captain Cook “fish and beef” restaurant (Bulgaria, 4.5 on TripAdvisor).
More on-brand was the Captain Cook dive watch made by Rado between 1962 and 1968 — an outlier at the time, Rado was known for thin, ceramic dress watches — and reintroduced in 2017. Now the watchmaker has christened a new Captain Cook, the Captain Cook Ceramic. As well as the unusual case material, a call back to the 1960s’ original, eagle-eyed readers will have noted the skeletonised dial — a technique deployed by watchmakers to show off their inner mechanical handiwork, and something you hardly ever see in sports watches due to its fragility. But then the Captain Cook Ceramic is hardy, waterproof to 300m and built for adventure — much like its namesake.
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