This is the new Tempest navigator’s watch from Rotate North, it was designed to be both tough and versatile while still being affordable to all sectors of the watch market – it has an MSRP of just $308 USD.
Rotate North is the only watchmaker I can think of based in North Ireland, the company is made up of a small but dedicated team who were recently recognised by Wired Magazine for building one of the world’s best budget dive watches.
The Rotate North Tempest is a utilitarian navigator’s watch designed to be worn every day, or just when you’re heading out into the wilderness and you need a tough watch that you know won’t let you down. It has a brushed 316L stainless steel case, a pressurized screw-down case back, and a screw-down crown giving it water-resistance down to 330 ft (100 metres or 10 ATM).
Inside the watch you’ll find a Ronda 715LI movement, a high-precision quartz movement with 5 jewels that offers a remarkable 10 years of battery life. The movement is protected by a shock-resistant Diashock system, it’s also designed to be highly serviceable for generations of active use.
On top the Tempest has a rotating 12-hour dive bezel, a sapphire crystal, and hands and markers coated with LumiNova for nighttime visibility. The face has a classic, minimalist design to ensure easy reading in all lighting conditions, it has a date window and hour, minute, and second hands.
The watch comes with a compound rubber strap that’s toughened to withstand active outdoor and ocean conditions while still being suitable for casual office use, and it’s made from sustainably-sourced rubber by a small family business in Northern Italy.
The movement and case are both built in Germany and then finished in the United Kingdom at Rotate North’s facilities to ensure quality control.
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Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
