about but never stopped working.
What’s more, it demonstrated
versatility when, to celebrate his
birthday Sir Francis slipped into his
dinner jacket mid-Atlantic and
enjoyed a champagne cocktail.
The hegemony of the High
Seas extends on land too.
Since partnering with the
New York Yacht Club, the
brand has signed up a
dozen of the world’s top
yacht spots, so whether
you are sinking a gin with
the commodore of the Royal
Yacht Squadron in Cowes orL
ast year Rolex took to the
skies with the reappearance
of the GMT-Master “Pepsi”
in Oystersteel. This year the brand
turned its attention to water, with the
launch of the Yacht-Master 42—a
chunky white gold watch, with
a 42mm diameter case, the
now familiar black ceramic
60-minute bi-directional
bezel, and the Oysterflex
bracelet. Making its first
appearance in a
Yacht-M a s ter, t he
watch is equipped
with the 70-hour
power reserve calibre
- As well as
launching the new
Yacht-Master, Rolex
staged a small exhibition
at the Baselworld fair to
celebrate a model that is
now over a quarter of a
century old and was born out
of an association with
yachting that reaches back to
the mid 20th century.
It was in 1958 that Rolex formed an
alliance with the New York Yacht Club,
instigator of the America’s Cup. Fast
forward 61 years and Rolex is title
sponsor of most of the important
fixtures on the yachting calendar (the
Rolex Sydney Hobart, Rolex Fastnet
Race, Rolex Giraglia, the Maxi Yacht
Rolex Cup et al). Rolex also announced
that it would be the official timepiece of
SailGP, a new series of races taking
place in Sydney, San Francisco, New
York, Cowes and Marseille. SailGP is
intended to exploit the excitement of
“foiling”, in which the hull lifts out of
the water to increase speed.
A Yacht-Master is on the wrist of Sir
Ben Ainslie(see page 80) just as a Rolex
was on the wrist of the most famous
mariner of modern times—Sir Francis
Chichester, who circumnavigated the
globe single-handedly over 226 days in
1966 and 1967. His watch got bashed
swapping suntan tips with Flavio
Briatore at the Yacht Club Costa
Smeralda, you do so on Rolex time.
But if you use a little imagination
you can trace the bloodline of the
Rolex Yacht-Master right back to
the early 20th century. Hans
Wilsdorf, the visionary founder
of the brand, was obsessed,
and I mean obsessed, with
achieving marine
chronometer levels of
precision within the
confines of what was then
known pejoratively as a
“wristlet” watch. This was
more than ambitious: it was—in
the eyes of people who believed
they knew about these things—
utterly ridiculous (like entering a
golf cart into Formula 1). At the
start of the last century, the wrist
was considered no place for a watch.
Wilsdorf not only got his “golf cart”
to the starting grid; he won the world
championship when, on July 15, 1914, © ALAIN COSTA (YACHT-MASTER IN WHITEGOLD); © DAN NERNEY/COURTESY OF NEW YORK YACHT CLUB(CLUB INTERIOR); © ROLEX/JEAN-DANIEL MEYER (FIRST YACHT-MASTER); © ROLEX (WILSDORF)Clockwise from left: the latest Rolex Yacht-Master 42 in 18ct white gold; the New
York Yacht Club; the first Yacht-Master, 1992; Hans Wilsdorf, the founder of Rolex who
was obsessed with achieving marine chronometer levels of precision in a wristwatchVANITY FAIR ON TIME AUTUMN 2019Case Study
By Nicholas Foulkes
Plutocrat-ready The elegant new
Rolex Yacht-Master 42 taps into an
aesthetic inspired by master mariners
42