Vostok Amphibia 710615 Sailboat

The weather here in the UK is becoming more spring-like with the day so I decided to dust off one of my spring / summer watches, the fantastic Vostok Amphibia Sailboat dial in the 710 Ministry Case.  This particular Vostok Amphibia is model number 710615 but has been christened the “Sailboat” or “Yacht” model in many of the forums, photograph etc. online. I would certainly class it as one of the “classic” Vostok Amphibia watch dials.

The Vostok Amphibia Sailboat dial is one of my favourites. It is a nice clean, bright white dial with black and blue hour indices, a black outer ring for the minute / second indices, black arabian numerals at 12, 9 and 6 and a date window at 3 o’clock. The hands are black with white lume, they are not the standard Vostok Amphibia hands. The hour hand is straight and does not have the usual large arrow pointer at the end, have a look at the hands on my Vostok Amphibia Operation Desert Shield for a comparison. Additionally the red second hand does not have the circular red dot with white lume that one normally sees on other Vostok Amphibia hands. This model has a red,  straight, needle-type hand. The dial is finished off with a central blue sailboat with the word Amphibia written underneath it black. I think the red, white and blue make this a very nautical looking watch.

I just so happened to have some new 22mm Nato straps, a replacement bezel with a Seiko Pepsi insert  and a new leather and canvas strap, purchased on Ebay, lying around so I thought I would try out a few combinations. I had nothing better to do on a Bank Holiday Monday in May!

I most recently had the watch sitting on a leather 5 ring Zulu strap, here is it on the Zulu strap with both the original bezel and the replacement bezel and insert on it. I was never quite happy with this strap, the leather always felt a bit thin to me. I also notice, looking at the pictures the crystal could do with a bit of a polish. The line on the strap is a scratch from the watch.

Next I thought I would try it out on sky blue and white striped Nato strap (I call this design the “Argentinian” for obvious reasons!).

Then I thought I would see how the Vostok Amphibia 710615 Sailboat would look on a red, white and blue Nato.

And finally I thought I would see how the Vostok Amphibia Sailboat looks on this funky leather and canvas strap I found on Ebay. I don’t know much about this strap. It is a fairly substantial strap, with nice stitching details and, from what I can see, it is difficult to make out, it has the words “vintage diloy” on the strap loop. I just thought it went well with the whole spring / summer, fun watch idea.

So which do you think works best? I can’t make up my mind.