The sea is in our blood
Zebec Watches is based less than 5 minutes walk from the beach in East Lothian, Scotland.
The coast here is beautiful and a little rugged. It attracts wind surfers, kite boarders and swimmers. Set just back from the beach are the dunes and woodlands that are home to walkers and trail runners, and a host of native Scottish wildlife.
We wanted to design watches that could be used every day by all these people. The watches also have to be able to take in everything the Scottish weather can throw at them.
Why we're called Zebec
There's a wreck on the beach that the local kids call the Pirate ship. We decided to name the brand after it. Zebecs or Xebecs were small fast ships that were used by traders and Corsair pirates on the Mediterranean sea in the 1700s.
Why the parrot?
Archie the parrot is named after the founder's inspirational father-in-law. It was his favourite bird and references the whole pirate ship thing in a playful way.
Plus all the nautical stuff's been used a million times already. Except for Manatees. Nobody uses manatees. They wouldn't look cool as a logo. People would just ask why you drew a potato on your watch.
The watch is the thing
We're a very small outfit. We don't have shareholders to pay and we don't need to gouge profits out of our customers.
Every single design and specification decision is made with one thing in mind. What's absolutely the best watch we can make on our budget?
Here are some of the decisions we made when we were speccing out the Corsair.
Sapphire or Mineral crystal?
Sapphire every time.
C1 or C3 lume?
C3 is more expensive, but much better - C3
Seiko NH35 or Miyota 8215?
Seiko a bit smoother, less noisy and has a slightly stronger track record - Seiko NH35
Actually - this watch doesn't have a date, so
NH35 or NH38?
NH38 is a bit more expensive. That extra little notch would slightly annoy me, so - NH38.
Display caseback or solid?
Let's see, the NH38 isn't a looker, and we can put Archie on the back, so - solid.
Laser etched or deep stamped caseback?
Deep stamped will add significantly as it needs tooled up, but it looks and feels a lot better. We can absorb that to make the watch a little better, so - let's go deep stamped.
Applied or embossed indices?
No real cost difference with this much lume. Embossed is more durable if the watch takes a beating. It cuts out any chance of misaligned indices and lets us do the big lumed circle, so - embossed.