The single most confusing 15 minutes of my career in watches was back in 2011, when a Rolex representative attempted to guide me through the operations of its regatta timing watch, the Yacht-Master II.
Regatta timers are a micro-niche aimed at those who understand dipping and tacking and what on earth (or at sea) a boom vang is. If that’s you, you’ll already know the following, and if it isn’t, you’ll never need to know, but anyway: a yacht race is preceded by several minutes of jostling and positioning, during which horns or flags signal the countdown to the start at one-minute intervals. Amid all that, it can be helpful to be able to track those intervals on your watch as well.
When it comes to boats, I’m firmly with Dr Johnson, who told Boswell that being at sea is much the same as being ‘in a jail, with the chance of being drowned’. One had to wonder whether someone at Rolex thought the same, since the Yacht-Master II’s operation was so stupefying – involving turning the bezel and hitting the pushers in various combinations to various unfathomable ends – that drowning seemed a genuinely possible outcome of attempting to use it while in charge of a boat.
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It was also a big old clunker of a design that, one suspected, was more likely to be found on the wrist of Harry Enfield’s ‘I’m considerably richer than yow’ character on his first trip to Cowes, than on anyone genuinely nautically inclined. Sir Ben Ainslie, for instance, wears Rolex’s much more straightforward nautical piece, the Yacht-Master 42, which in all-grey titanium is one of the brand’s most suavely understated – and massively demanded – tool watches.
The discontinuation of its oddball brother in 2024 was not much of a surprise, but the Yacht-Master II’s return at this year’s Watches and Wonders trade show very much was.
I don’t think anyone had it on their prediction lists, but there it was: in both steel and yellow-gold versions, substantially redesigned but also completely re-engineered, to the extent that even a land-lubber like me could understand it. It’s essentially a reworked chronograph, with a special hand for counting down the minutes against a 10-minute scale, and you can set how many of those 10 minutes you need (this can vary between races).
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The visuals have been dramatically toned down and streamlined, while its operation is now far more intuitive, via just the pushers. It has a fun flourish too: the sweeping chronograph seconds hand runs backwards to mark off the last 30-seconds of the countdown, and then will continue running backwards until you reset it.
I’m sure the Cowes set will embrace it, though they’re not short of options for yachty wristwear this summer.
Panerai has a number of chunky sailing watches as part of its partnership with the America’s Cup team Luna Rossa (though not currently a regatta timer), Ulysse Nardin has made a funky, very lightweight version of its Diver Chronograph in recycled carbon fibre and titanium, as a limited edition tie-up with The Ocean Race round-the-world competition, while TAG Heuer does a modern version of its sought-after vintage entrant, the Skipper.
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Meanwhile Omega’s Seamaster Regatta, a digital-analogue monster in titanium with four pushers and multiple readouts, is surely the most technically adept offering; just don’t ask me what it does.
Or you could try hunting out the ultrarare, spectacularly complicated beast that is Richard Mille’s RM 60-01 Flyback Chronograph Regatta, which appeared in a few incarnations between 2014 and 2021, each with countdown function, skeletonised chronograph and compass bezel. I’m told these go for around £100,000 if they pop up.
Richard Mille’s dapper EMEA chief executive Peter Harrison happens to be one of the world’s finest yachtsmen and skippered the Yacht Club de Monaco’s victorious pursuit of the famous Admiral’s Cup last year. Which means he’ll know both what a boom vang is and also where to find an RM 60-01. Sure enough, apparently there’s one popping up at the brand’s own secondary market store, Ninety on London’s Mount Street, any minute now. Start your timers…
This article first appeared in Spear’s Magazine Issue 100. Click here to subscribe
