Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph Ceramic Bezel

The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore is a legend. To know it is to love it, even if you’re a “big-watch skeptic.” This 44 mm Royal Oak Offshore with manufacture movement, ceramic bezel, and display case back represents the latest and finest developments in AP’s storied Offshore model line.

This watch features a ceramic bezel that renders the Offshore immune to the bezel scratches that have scourged previous Royal Oak and Offshore models: no more. The ceramic bezel is so hard that only catastrophic hits (i.e., “dude, where’s my wrist?”) and diamond-tipped tools can mar its finish. But refinement endures; each ceramic bezel features the same delicate brushed and polished finish as the steel and precious metal counterparts. White gold bezel bolts are present and brilliantly polished.

Inside the burly stainless steel 44mm case, an Audemars Piguet in-house caliber 3126/3840 keeps time in style. Ornately finished in the finest traditions of the Swiss “Holy Trinity,” this movement works as well as it looks. The 55-hour power reserve powers a 59-jewel gem of a motor with maintenance-free ceramic rotor bearings, shock resistant balance bridge and regulator, and 365 hand-finished components.

This Royal Oak Offshore features the latest and most desirable of the Offshore series’ strap designs. Often called the “Offshore Diver Strap,” this natural rubber design is supple on the wrist and easily adjusted thanks to a convenient pin buckle. After years of owner entreaties, Audemars Piguet finally has started to offer standard pin buckles in place of the occasionally awkward deployant clasps.

With a combination of old-school craft quality and new-school cool, the Offshore has taken its place alongside the original Royal Oak in the pantheon of luxury watch legends.

There’s only one watch that combines true high horology finishing quality with a look that’s up-to-the-minute hip. Now 21-years old and stronger than ever, the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore is flat-out fun to own and wear.

When modern watch designers look to the king of the hill for inspiration, they look to Audemars Piguet’s “Offshore.”