Recommended Reading: A Look At The New TAG Heuer Skipper And Its History
… From the definitive authority on Heuer chronographs.
One of the hottest new watches of what looks like it’s going to be a very long, hot summer, is a new watch from TAG Heuer that brings back one of its most popular past designs. That watch is the new TAG Heuer Skipper. The Skipper was originally designed by Heuer after the successful defense, by the yacht Intrepid, of the America’s Cup in 1967, for which Heuer had provided stopwatches and other timing devices.
The signature feature of the Skipper when it launched in 1968, was a countdown timer chronograph function. There was a standard chronograph center seconds hand, but instead of the usual 30 minute counter in a subdial, the Skipper had – and the new version has – a fifteen minute countdown timer. The new version also has a running seconds hand in a sub-dial at 6:00, and something which as far as I know, was never found on any of the original Skipper models, which is an hour counter at 9:00 (in fact I don’t think any of the vintage Skippers had any hour counters anywhere).
Race To The Starting Line
The Skipper is an example of a very specific complication known as a regatta timer, and the reason for the countdown timer has to do with how regattas – yacht races – start. Unlike cars or horses or hey, hamsters, sailing vessels cannot wait at a starting line until the starting gun goes off. Instead, they must tack back and forth behind the line, while the committee boat overseeing the race counts down to the actual start.
The countdown period can be anywhere from five to fifteen minutes depending on the rules in place, and a big part of winning is making sure you cross the line as close to the firing of the starting gun as possible. Crossing early incurs a penalty from which it is nearly impossible to recover, but playing it safe and crossing late can cost you as well, so skippers and crews will jockey feverishly for position before the race starts – one of the few instances in any racing sport where the start is at least as interesting as the actual race.
The new version of the Skipper gives up very little to the vintage versions – the small seconds subdial is very unobtrusive so even though it’s not a two register watch like the original, thanks to the dominant color scheme of the chronograph subdials, it reads very much like a two register chronograph. The glassbox crystal looks terrific and the date, while also not present on the original, is like the small seconds register, very unobtrusive at 6:00, where it sits on the vertical center line of the dial and doesn’t disturb the symmetry of the watch (the first Heuer automatic chronographs had dates at 6:00 as well, so I feel like TAG Heuer gets a pass on putting a date window on the modern Skipper).
Heuer has produced regatta timers in other configurations as well, by the way – one of the classic systems for regatta timers involves the use of colored disks which change color as the clock counts down to the start, as you can see in one of Tim’s videos from a few years back.
It’s a very cool system – and highly specific to the environment for which it was designed. This is part of its charm, but it has the drawback of making the watch not terribly useful for anything other than timing a five-minute regatta countdown.
Now, the Skipper has come in a number of different variations since the launch of the first one in 1968, and if you want a full rundown on all the different models (at least a couple of which were new to me) OnTheDash, which is pretty much the final word on any and all things having to do with Heuer chronographs, has published a terrific visual timeline of all the Skipper models. The takeaway for me from comparing the vintage to the new model is that TAG Heuer has done a great job of taking a loved, cult-classic vintage chronograph and refreshing it with modern design features and a modern movement, and the OTD history lesson goes a long way towards putting some of the calls TAG Heuer made with the new watch, into context.
The TAG Heuer Skipper: Case, 39mm x 13.9mm, 46.0mm lug to lug, “bezel free construction” with glassbox domed sapphire crystal; water resistance 100 meters. Movement, caliber TH20-06, automatic, with regatta countdown chronograph and center seconds chronograph register, with hour counter at 9:00. Estimated MSRP, CHF 6,600. Find out more at TAGHeuer.com.