SIHH 2007 - Audemars Piguet

Royal Oak Offshore Alinghi Team in forged carbon - 1300 piece limited edition

Alinghi is the Swiss syndicate that won the 2003 America’s Cup. AP has been making watches in honour of the syndicate and its yacht, also named Alinghi, for several years now. This year’s Offshore Alinghi Team is easily the most exotic Offshore to date - the case is made of forged carbon, which is created by subjecting carbon wires inside a die to extremely high pressure, thus “forging” the case.

The carbon variant of the Alinghi Team is a very cool watch, it looks almost menacing in its black and red colours, but the watch is unexpectedly light due to the carbon case. That being said, forged carbon is not a new technology, it has been in use in other fields, including in medical instruments. Applying it in watch cases is a novel and innovative idea, but it is not a breakthrough technology.

The movement inside the 2007 Alinghi Team watch is the cal. 2326/2848, a JLC based chronograph with the addition of a Regatta countdown function.

Offshore Alinghi Team titanium caseback

Red gold and platinum are the other two options for the Alinghi Team chronograph - both will feature a bezel in forged carbon. All three versions of the watch have the same titanium caseback depicting sailors of the Alinghi in relief.

Royal Oak Offshore Alinghi Team in platinum - 107 piece limited edition

Royal Oak Offshore Alinghi Team in red gold - 600 piece limited edition

This year sees another watch created in conjunction with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s the Arnold’s All Stars Offshore, named after the programme started by the Governor of California dedicated to “after school programs & youth summer camps for at risk youth”.

Royal Oak Offshore Arnold’s All Stars - limited edition of 350 pieces

This watch is a mix of design elements from several Offshore editions. It is the same size as the T3 chronograph of 2003, but the rectangular chronograph pushers are in the style of the Offshore Montoya. And the rose gold case and chocolate dial combination was first used in the Arnold Schwarzenegger Offshore. This is a big and loud watch, which I am sure was the intention of the designers.

Inside the Arnold’s All Stars Offshore lies the new cal. 3126 movement, based on the in-house cal. 3120 automatic, combined with the same Dubois-Depraz chronograph module found in previous Offshore chronographs.

Arnold’s All Stars Offshore caseback

The case style used in the Arnold’s All Stars is found on another celebrity tie-in Offshore of 2007, the Offshore Shaquille O’Neal. Two editions of this watch will be available, a steel version of 960 pieces, and a 96 piece white gold version with a diamond bezel. Both use the same cal. 3126 movement as found in the Arnold’s All Stars.

Royal Oak Offshore Shaquille O’Neal in steel

Royal Oak Offshore Shaquille O’Neal in white gold with 32 diamonds set on the bezel

Reflecting the jersey number of Shaquille O’Neal since he began playing for Miami Heat, the positions of the numbers “2” and “3” on the dial have been switched to show “32”. Another reference to the sport is found in the box of the watch, which comes in the form of a life-sized baseketball in polished wood.

All proceeds from the endorsement of this watch will go to Shaquille O’Neal’s charitable foundation.

Caseback of the Offshore Shaquille O’Neal

The next watch was actually been released prior to SIHH, in fact, one Purist who visited the fair was sporting one on his wrist. Although it looks like a typical Offshore, the Offshore Volcano uses the cal. 3126 based on the in-house AP movement, instead of the JLC-based calibre found in most other Offshores. Aesthetically, it not different from other Offshore chronographs.

Two new ladies Offshore chronograph models have been added to the range. The first is in yellow gold with a white colour scheme, the other is in steel with plum colours. Both are automatic chronographs with a Frederic Piguet cal. 1185 movement.

Yellow gold and white

Steel and purple

There is one last Royal Oak Offshore model introduced at SIHH, the Boutique Scuba Special Edition. It will be available at AP boutiques only, and is the same diameter as the traditional Offshore chronograph. The crown at 10 o’clock is for rotating the internal diving bezel.

Royal Oak Offshore Boutique Scuba

Royal Oak Offshore Boutique Scuba back

Finally we can move away from the Royal Oak Offshore collection, and onto the Millenary range. As AP introduces a larger number of models and complications in the Millenary collection, I am growing increasingly fond of the ovoid shape.

The first of the new Millenary watches is the Starlit Sky collection for ladies. Two models are available, one in white tones called the Day Light, and another in darker colours, the Starry Night. Both use the cal. 3120 as a base and feature power reserve, moonphase and date functions.

The Day Light is presented in rose gold with a diamond set bezel and lugs, while the white gold Starry Night is available in two versions. One offers diamond set bezel and lugs, while the other version is completely paved in diamonds, bezel, case, lugs and even the edges of the caseback.

Millennary Starlit Sky Day Light - mother-of-pearl dial

Millennary Starlit Sky Starry Night - dial is made from quartz stone

Last year AP presented the Cabinet No. 5 complication, a perpetual calendar with deadbeat seconds, chronograph and power reserve indicator. This year the company unveiled the Millenary with Deadbeat Seconds, essentially the Cabinet No. 5 minus all the complications except the ‘dead’ seconds and the AP escapement.

Deadbeat seconds tick away, unlike the smooth sweep of a typical seconds hand in a mechanical watch. To achieve this, the watchmakers at AP (or more probably at Renaud et Papi) “devised a system with two superimposed seconds-wheels driven by a “differential”: one is free and moves steadily forward, while the other carries wolf’s teeth and moves in jerks”. This is doubtless extremely challenging to accomplish and the watchmakers deserve a pat on the back for managing it, however, it seems to be a completely pointless complication.

More intriguing than the deadbeat seconds is the AP escapement inside the watch. Not only is the escapement lubrication free, it is also highly efficient - demonstrating a lower rate of loss of energy in the escapement compared to the traditional lever escapement. The AP escapement also features a double hairspring - two balance springs one on top of another at a 180 degree angle, each cancelling out any positional error of the other. Another interesting feature is the stopwork mechanism which avoids the torque delivered by the front and back ends of the mainsprings as they are typically of poor consistency, thus improving amplitude and timekeeping.

The Millenary with Deadbeat Seconds is a perfect example of bleeding edge watchmaking that Audemars Piguet (Renaud et Papi) S.A. focuses on. It contains technology that are clearly cutting edge and very clever, but is quite impractical and even more expensive. Nonetheless such watches are wonderful to admire, and more importantly offer a peek into the possible future of watchmaking.

AP is one of the most prolific manufacturers of striking watches today - its repertoire includes minute repeaters as well as grande et petit sonnerie wristwatches; though some point out the occasional lack of consistency in terms of sound quality across the range. We conclude with a striking wristwatch, the Jules Audemars Jumping Hour Minute Repeater. It is traditional high horology, nothing bleeding edge here, but nevertheless a subtle and beautiful complicated timepiece.

Two useful functions have been incorporated into this watch. The first is a device that does away with the pause between hours and minutes when the repeater chimes a time that does not contain a quarter hour, for example 2:12 pm. The other is a device that disengages the time-setting mechanism when the repeater is chiming, thus averting disaster.