About
Do you know the history of surfing? Southern California’s beach borough coalition brings a lot of romance to the narrative, but the origin of the sport is far more diverse. Fishermen in Peru were using proto-surf craft as early as 3000 BCE; Polynesians were carving images of their conquering the primordial wake in the 11th and 12th centuries; and European settlers record Ghanians as already utilizing longboards by their arrival in 1640. From the western reaches of South America to Africa’s Gold Coast, native peoples learned that the ocean could provide recreational joy in the same way it did sustenance.
During the decade-long stretch dating from 1768 to 1779, Captain James Cook discovered both his own mortality and pieces of the tale above. In visits to Tahiti and the Sandwich Islands (properly and natively known as Hawai’i today), he recorded a clear account of indigenous locals surfing the coastal waves. Hawaii’s foreign colonization doesn’t make for a culturally clean transfer to 21st-century California; Christian missionaries decried surfing as an indecent pagan practice and suppressed it with intentionality. Luckily, the sport survived a century of persecution and oppression. When four Hawaiian princes brought surfing to Santa Cruz in 1885, they would kick-start its transformation into a California lifestyle in the next century.
Pioneers like Duke Kahanamoku and George Freeth set the table; the “Father of Modern Surfing” introduced the sport to the international community, while Freeth demonstrated it at Huntington Beach and seeded it along the coast. Hawaii’s elevation to statehood in 1959 significantly elevated surfing in the public eye as a means of promoting tourism, while post-war California culturally embraced the sport across multiple genres in the 50s and 60s. The Beach Boys gave us Surfin’ U.S.A.; Vans started selling the Authentic; the Hollywood flick Gidget brought teenage angst to surf culture; and Huntington Beach transformed overnight into Surf City U.S.A. Everywhere you looked, the surfing revolution was slowly transforming California’s cultural genome.
At this point, you might be wondering why I have gone on such a long-winded monologue. It all comes down to the ingredients mentioned thus far that have worked together to make sport and state inseparable. History tells us that California is not the birthplace of surfing, but it may arguably be where the sport came of age in the West. I have little doubt that since the mid-century, many a surfer has arrived early in the morning at one of La Jolla, Malibu, etc., plunged their quiver into the sand, looked out across the watery horizon, and thought to themselves, “Yeah, this is the place.”
Surfer or no, all of us can relate to the butterflies that roost in our gut at memorable locations. This cocktail of exceptionalism – the uniqueness, the people, the environs – is what sticks with us long after we have departed. Palawan in the Philippines evokes a sense of peace in me, with its rocky outcroppings and turquoise blue waters, just as Austin, Texas, resonates in my mind for its excellent barbecue and incredible motorsports venue at COTA. There are no commonalities between them, and yet somehow, they generate the same mental lift. The Romans had a Latin phrase for guardian spirits that we use in a more modern context to describe this sensation: Genius Lōcī, or “the spirit of place.” This is the genesis behind Los Angeles-based Lōcī Watches: giving time-based relevance and support to the places we love.
We need only look to the founder to understand what Lōcī is about. Trip Henderson is a well-traveled Navy veteran – the man has clocked every state but North Dakota, plus five landmasses of the continental variety with oceans to match – and has built his career on nonprofit work in disaster relief. His travel experience and time with Team Rubicon for over half a decade give authenticity to the mission; the truest inspiration comes from experience, and in Trip’s case, it has manifested in an ongoing dedication to preserving the places we love.
Befitting his background, Trip bills and runs Lōcī as an impact business; Lōcī has a financial mandate to donate 10% of annual sales to non-profits equally dedicated to the cause of saving fragile ecosystems and unique places. In my mind, that is a mission we should trumpet. The marriage of material consumption and environmental conservation may not be novel, but it is most certainly noble (particularly in the context of watch companies) and worthy of celebration.
With Lōcī’s first launch in the ‘Pacific Coast Highway’ sport watch series, Trip has chosen to honor the West Coast’s most iconic stretch of blacktop. Each of his three dials fittingly pays tribute to memorable spots and stretches along our shores: there is the ‘Big Sur’ with its asphalt black dial and double yellow street striping, the Pacific blue, wave-patterned ‘Monterey Bay’, and the sunburst sand gradient ‘Surfrider Beach’ of Malibu fame. Back in December, Trip was kind enough to oblige me with an example of the Surfrider Beach, and it gave a good account of itself during a desert field test in Joshua Tree (you can read more about that adventure here). I’ve held onto this PCH since then, and now I’m back in a full review capacity right off the water here at Venice Beach.
A brief slate of technical specs for this versatile sport watch is in order. We’re looking at an angular tonneau case hewn from 316L stainless steel, with brushed surfaces (both vertical and horizontal, depending on the case section) broken up by mirror-polished bevels along the upper edges. Dimensionally speaking, the PCH measures in at 39.5mm x 48mm lug-to-lug with a very approachable thickness of 10.8mm and a lug width of 20mm. Water resistance is predictably stout at 100 meters and is reassuringly secured by the presence of a screw-down crown. Meanwhile, the watch’s dial is protected by a sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating, which in turn is flanked by a smooth fixed bezel.
All three dial permutations are available in both quartz and automatic, which are priced at $595 and $895, respectively. The movement choices are exactly what you would expect and want at this end of the market for an active lifestyle sport watch. The quartz model uses a Ronda 715 that is accurate to within -10/+20 seconds per month, while the automatic version (which I opted for) utilizes Sellita’s SW200-1. The SW200-1 is a common workhorse clone of ETA’s 2824, and can be considered almost identical (the main differences boil down to the presence of an extra jewel for the Sellita and finishing). It has a power reserve of 38 hours and beats at 28,800 bph; while the standard grade is normally accurate to -12/+30 seconds per day, Lōcī regulates precision to -10/+10 seconds per day instead. While both movements are Swiss, Lōcī does all of its assembly and pressure testing domestically.
The calling card of the Surfrider Beach is the matte textured dial, with this particular example using a color gradient directly inspired by the sand meeting the water at Surfrider Beach itself. The PCH layout has a clever dual-layer construction; the center and minute track perimeter are upraised with the indices mounted high on the latter, so there is a shadow effect along the dial moat that other watches with flush indices lack. Those indices are highly legible, too; they’re Kit Kat-shaped with a mirror polish to match the hands, and the X1 Super-LumiNova works solidly in low-light situations. The blue second hand features Lōcī’s logo as a counter-weight and provides a tasteful pop of color.
In my experience, the Surfrider Beach is the most chameleon-like of the trio; depending on your lighting situation, the dial’s color profile will adjust significantly. It benefits most from outdoor activation and will shift in response to natural sunlight. Something to keep in mind if you’re an outdoor aficionado is that this great strength of the Surfrider Beach is also a weakness; the dial tones starting white in the gradient’s center meant I was constantly battling light washing out the logo and text during my photography session. Luckily, the polished handset and indices prevent this from becoming a practical time-telling issue. All in all, I would classify it as an aesthetic feature rather than a bug, and it is something you’ll have to learn to work around if you enjoy watch photography as I do.
There’s one item that I couldn’t help but notice regarding the dial, and that’s the finishing within the date window. A close inspection with my phone’s flashlight revealed a faint seam along the inside edges of the window; we already know the dial is a dual-layer setup, but the seam’s visibility feels just a touch unsightly. Color-matching the date disc (something the Big Sur already does) and applying a varnish to hide this segmentation feels like a pair of low-cost touches that would mentally place a picture of the Surfrider Beach’s date window in the dictionary next to “aperture” instead of “cutout.” This feels like an isolated, almost one-off issue for a watch that is otherwise very well planned out. It hasn’t prevented me from enjoying the watch (the line is faint enough that I didn’t bother trying to photograph it), but it is something you should consider if you’re the type who can’t look past or “unnotice” certain details. At this time, I do not know if the seam is visible on the other two variants.
The PCH ranks well on the wearability scale, even though it is “all dial” with its smooth bezel. My 6.25-inch wrist is on the small side for its 48mm wingspan, but once I start going about my day and generate some kinetic energy, my wrist swells ever-so-slightly and the PCH provides a perfectly snug fit. The sports watch ethos is present in full; you get drilled-end lugs (thank you, Lōcī), a well-fitted rubber strap that lends itself well to outdoor use, and an extended crown tube with strong knurling that makes adjusting the time easy whether your hands are wet or gloved. I have long wondered if this aesthetic, most commonly found on Tudor Black Bays of yesteryear, would be something I’d take issue with in-person. I have found my personal experience to be the complete opposite; I love the extra real estate, and I don’t care about the lack of crown guards nearly as much as I thought I would. Even as a well-traveled watch lover, the PCH has taught me that it is never too late to adjust expectations and reevaluate your own tastes.
The PCH has a solid caseback secured by four screws at each corner. The solid caseback feels like the right move – this is a sport watch, after all – because it minimizes thickness and you aren’t necessarily losing out on fine art with the Sellita encased within. In the center of the caseback, there is an expansive engraving of the SoCal coastline with Lōcī’s name and logo stamped in the center while additional product text runs the circumference.
My fair and transparent take: the screws don’t bother me (enough luxury watch brands have made ‘industrial chic’ a calling card), and I like the engraving, but the latter is noticeably sharp to the touch. It’s obvious enough for me to wish that the engraving had been further cleaned or sanded down; you aren’t going to hurt yourself handling it, but I could see skin irritation being a real possibility if saltwater or sand were trapped between wrist and watch over an extended period. Sporting types should take note when operating in sand-heavy environments.
A word on the engraved rubber strap is in order, because it ranks high on my list of favorite features. Made from FKM rubber with an 18mm taper at the buckle, I have found this strap to be comfortably supple on the wrist. There are many rubber straps out there that snag (they’re “grabby,” to put it as scientifically as I can) and can be annoying to pull through the keepers, but this particular strap isn’t one of them. In my mind, a good design will make you wonder what further potential is capable of being realized. In this case, the rubber strap’s fitment is so good at the lugs that I wish the PCH case design had an integrated bracelet offering on top. If this case design is revisited in a future Lōcī installment, I hope an integrated bracelet makes its way into the final sketches.
All in all, my impression of the Surfrider Beach after a multi-month tenure is overwhelmingly positive. It is durably constructed, utilizes an interesting mix of design elements to keep the user visually engaged, and has a reliable blue-collar movement that you will never need to worry about in terms of servicing cost. Sure, there are some touchpoints concerning finishing that I think could use improvement. But when I put those items in the context of an inaugural watch series in the sub-$1,000 price stratum, they feel insignificant. I very much consider the PCH to be an excellent sport watch for the economics requested, and I’m supportive of paying extra to buoy charitable works that focus on environmental conservation. The fact that these first watches are protective of the very coastline I live along is just icing on the cake.
When I consider the PCH in totality, I find myself thankful for a watch that encourages the wearer to evaluate it in a way that goes beyond the physical components. Purchasing a watch is as much about buying a technically sound product as it is about buying a feeling, sometimes more so. The emotions that Lōcī is offering you beyond the watch are authenticity and relevance – a chance to vote with your dollars in favor of helping preserve the places you love, and a choice to make part of your uniform a watch that says something about what you stand for. To me, there’s some real magic in a great watch that allows the wearer and the company to make a joint statement on what they believe. I can’t wait to see what compelling conversation Lōcī brings to the table next.
For more information about Lōcī Watches, please visit their website.
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