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timekeeper’s talesICONIC HOROLOGIST KURT KLAUS CHARTS THE HISTORY OF THE MOST INNOVATIVECHRONOGRAPHS MANUFACTURED BY IWC OVER THE PAST TWO DECADES

Everything ingenious is simple. That is the guiding principle I have followed all through my time as masterwatch-maker and head of the research & development department at IWC Schaffhausen. It works every time.

Let me take you back to the early Eighties, when I was looking for a mechanical solution for an absolutely reliable perpetual calendar that would also be easy to operate. I had already been involved in the design of many calendars for complicated pocket watches for the Schaffhausen manufactory; but this calendar was supposed to be different. After manyyears of experimenting, I finally invented a mechanism that competently controlled the different lengths of the months aswell as the leap years that are part of the Gregorian calendar. We named it after the Italian inventor, artist and genius Da Vinci.The highly sophisticated mechanism of the new perpetual calendar was mechanically programmed and required no adjust-ment other than the replacement of the century slide supplied with the watch. Only the years 2100, 2200 and 2300 neededa minor correction to be made because these are not leap years according to the Gregorian calendar. The mechanical ver-satility of the new invention was just as impressive as the simplicity of its operation. It automatically set the date, the day ofthe week, the month, the year, the decade and the century; plus, it showed the current moon phase.

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Nevertheless, it was an everyday watch cum chronograph that per-mitted aggregate time recording up to 12 hours. It was this movement,with its perpetual calendar and moon phase display, that was eventual-ly to ensure this complicated timepiece of a significant breakthrough ina time not particularly predisposed to mechanical watches. This was awatch that was even able to put modern chip technology in the shadows.Its calendar exhibits had an unbelievable reduction ratio of 6315840000 to1 on the longest gear train between the escape wheel and the one move-ment of the century slide with the first two digits of the year, every 100 years.Never before had anything of this kind been seen in a wristwatch. This was1985 and the patented calendar had just found a place in the countless com-plicated wristwatches from IWC.

Spring 1990 marked the start of another new age in the recording oftime. IWC unveiled a wristwatch that was one of the most complicatedever seen, and yet at the same time the easiest to use: the GrandeComplication. A name used in watchmaking since time immemorial todescribe only the most complex of timepieces; because “ticking away”at the same even pace inside this watch was a mechanism that tookaround 50,000 hours of development by some of the best-qualifiedwatchmakers in the industry. The vital statistics: 659 mechanical parts (71of them jewels) and 21 functions and displays, including a perpetual cal-endar, together with a perpetual moon phase display. Working inside thecase were a chronograph and a highly complex minute repeater activat-ed through an all-or-nothing piece slide. This wonderful inventionchimed out the time in crystal-clear tones, activated by the slide on theleft-hand side of the case. Two tiny, precision-made hammers were re-leased and chimed the time in hours, quarters and minutes on two gongs.The striking mechanism was a technical tour de force. Initially, the chimeswere inaudible outside the solid platinum case so the glass was freely

suspended on a platinum membrane to enable it to amplify the vibra-tions produced by the gongs via the sound transmission pin. Since then,the Grande Complication from IWC has only been produced in an annual maximum of just 50 pieces.

In 1992, the manufactory notched up another milestone on the long path of hand-crafted watchmaking expertise with a DoubleChronograph. Now, the rattrapante mechanism is an old watch compli-cation of the 19th century. The French word rattrapante describes the fly-back hand found in split-seconds chronographs. These watches have twochronograph hands, one of which can be stopped separately to recordtwo or more separate readings within a given minute. The split-secondsmechanism from IWC could only have been made by specialists ob-sessed with complications for complication’s sake. Indeed, some of themechanical features have been so radically altered by the company thatthe patent office recognised them as genuine improvements. And IWC announced the split-seconds chronograph with a stainless steel case inthe same tradition as its Pilot’s Watches.

In 1993, on the 125th anniversary of the company, the legendaryGrande Complication was surpassed. The monument of time measure-ment was called Il Destriero Scafusia and was the most complicated se-ries-produced wristwatch in the world at the time. The first “flying”minute tourbillon in a titanium cage, a split-seconds chronograph and anopulent, hand-decorated movement clearly visible under a sapphire glassback were the additional features of this splendid work of watchmaking.It was pure art. The tourbillon has long been considered the ultimateachievement in mechanical watchmaking. Constructing the mechanismrepresented an enormous challenge. The filigree construction consistedof about 90 parts, all of which weighed a mere 0.296 grams. Producedin a limited edition of 125 numbered units, the collection quickly sold out.

A comparatively small but useful and trendsetting innovationemerged when I developed the first UTC Pilot’s Watch in 1998. UTCstands for Universal Time Coordinated, the time standard by which allpilots flying internationally take their bearings. Starting with universaltime, a constant, the time and date can be turned back or advanced

THE PILOTS WATCH DOUBLE CHRONOGRAPH (LEFT);

THE IL DESTRIERO SCAFUSIA (1993) WAS CREATED

TO MARK THE 125TH ANNIVERSARY OF IWC (RIGHT)

THE BEAUTY OF THE PILOT’S WATCH UTC (1998) IS THAT WORLD

TIME, OR ANY OTHER TIME OF THE WEARER’S CHOICE, RUNS

PARALLEL TO THE LOCAL TIME IN A WINDOW ON THE DIAL

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using the watch crown. World time, or any other time of the wearer’schoice, runs parallel to the local time in a window on the dial. For example, this means travellers in distant countries only need to glanceat the watch to know whether it is night or day back home.

The GST Deep One was a demonstration of IWC’s creativity whenit came to divers’ watches in 1999. The Deep One was the first and onlydiver’s watch with a mechanical depth gauge, a flyback hand for the maximum depth and an inner bezel for the dive time. It was a cleverlydevised professional combination instrument and became quite a rarity.

However, IWC technology reached unparalleled heights of sophis-tication when it created a watch to mark the start of the new millenni-um: the Portuguese Automatic 2000. The watch wrote a new chapter ofhistory. The extra large 5000-caliber movement featured some of the bestideas ever to appear in an automatic watch, among them the legendaryPellaton winding system and the balance with its Breguet spiral for

maximum precision. Besides this, the IWC 5000-caliber family with itsseven-day power reserve represented a giant leap forward in the historyof automatic movements: 1,960 complete revolutions of the rotor windthe movement for a full seven days. It took four years for this innovationfrom Schaffhausen to do justice to the demands of its creators.

In 2003, IWC introduced a new highlight: the Portuguese PerpetualCalendar. This watch combined the proprietary caliber 5011 with a perpetual calendar, which operated according to the same principle asthe Da Vinci. The caliber 5011, an updated version of the caliber 5000,had a central seconds hand and a date display. The date ring played an important role in this stage of evolution. Although concealed beneath thedial, it gave the essential impetus every evening for the perpetual calen-dar to move forward by one day.

A moon phase display naturally also has its place in an IWC with aperpetual calendar. The Portuguese Perpetual Calendar stands out here

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THE GST DEEP ONE WAS THE FIRST AND ONLY DIVER’S

WATCH WITH A MECHANICAL DEPTH GUAGE, A FLYBACK

HAND FOR MAXIMUM DEPTH AND AN INNER BEZEL

INDIA TODAY SPICE TROVE JANUARY 2010

as the world’s first watch that shows the position of the moon in both thenorthern and southern hemispheres. However, this is not the only spe-cial feature of this display. By using a larger moon disc, which has moreteeth than seen in other watches, the designers have achieved a sig-nificant improvement in accuracy. The deviation of the moon displayin the Portuguese Perpetual Calendar is just one day in 577 years.No mechanical wristwatch can do better at this point in time.

IWC has invested a considerable amount of time to produce anew mechanical chronograph movement. The result of all this effort, research and testing over the years was the movement, which wasabbreviated to Cal. 89360. This is the “motor” which drives the DaVinci Chronograph and set new standards in the field of horologicalengineering in 2007. It translated the chronograph logically for the firsttime into a “watch within a watch”. To do this, it converted its measuredtimes into, to our eyes, a completely familiar, analogue time display viahour hands and minute hands, and makes these measured times decod-able at a glance. This year, we launched the Da Vinci Perpetual CalendarDigital Date-Month, which continues in the proud tradition of thechronographs with perpetual calendar.

For the first time ever, an IWC timepiece with a perpetual calen-

dar offers a large format date display, and also turns the correct chang-ing of the month into a large scale digital event on the dial. The watch-

maker’s ingenuity was required yet again to showcase the two maincalendar indications in such a prominent fashion. The new IWC-man-ufactured 89800-caliber consists of 474 parts and builds up a powerreserve of 68 hours. Designed for perpetuity, and now here in thedigital age, the Da Vinci Perpetual Calendar Digital Date-Monthneeds to be advanced by one day only once every 100 years. Allthe other switching processes are reliably programmed and op-

erate automatically. The Schaffhausen manufactory is knownworldwide for solving difficult mechanical problems. We

have to ensure that we continue this legacy for creatingtimeless timepieces.

WATCHEST R O V ESPICE

THE PORTUGUESE PERPETUAL CALENDAR DOUBLE MOONPHASE

IS THE WORLD’S FIRST WATCH THAT SHOWS THE POSITION OF THE

MOON IN BOTH THE NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE