Safety stop

I love the sea and the beautiful underwater world, which can provide relief to the upset soul after a period of rushing like nothing else. Blue, water, fish, more water, more fish – this is just my kind of a reset button! I bet many who have had endless queues of meetings at the Baseworld splashed into the waters in the following weeks, too.

Last November far from the ocean in Vienna I met Carl F. Bucherer’s new ScubaTech edition (prototype back then) with its illuminating “Lucerne blue” quarter on the ceramic bezel. The finished timepiece with its coloured friends came to Basel.

In my opinion a diver needs a simple and unambiguous display of time. Sometimes brands give other factors more importance, which may result in everything but a practical piece – at least underwater. Carl F. Bucherer thankfully had legibility as a main requirement on the design sheets (underlined twice, I guess).

Patravi ScubaTec

Patravi ScubaTec debuted at Baselworld 2014 and it is a genuine divers watch with a COSC certified CFB 1950.1 automatic calibre. It is equipped with a helium valve which automatically depressurises (500m), it has a secure unidirectional bezel and very good underwater legibility highlighted previously. At the same time it looks great, in my opinion, especially the new coloured versions introduced in 2015. The latest pieces have the “Lucerne blue” ceramic on the bezel. Dials are available in black, white and blue, all with a nice structured fish scale pattern. The rose gold is not a typical material on dive watches but it makes a nice contrast with the black and blue. The strap is black with blue ‘Scubatec’ letters tightened with 18k pink gold and black titanium diver clasp.

 
The brand has generously sponsored the Manta Trust Foundation and two satellite tags to track the movement of Oceanic Manta Rays in the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean. The reverse side is engraved with two flying ray mantas to commemorate this.

Short story of Carl F. Bucherer

It reaches back to 1888 when Carl Friedrich Bucherer launched his business in Lucerne; dealing with watches and jewellery. He presented his first watch collection in 1919 and was among the first to create wrist watches for ladies. These were refined, sophisticated Art Deco pieces. They experimented with unusual shapes and solutions in the 1930s, such as a silver brooch watch in the form of a horse-drawn carriage, set with marcasite or a square watch, which was built into a leather case.
 
From 1948 the brand focused on sporty chronographs and functional pieces, like watches with telemeter, tachymeter or they tried to find the most practical display of the big date. Paying tribute to the jeweller origin, among the ladies timepieces are dainty jewellery versions and diamond-set secret watches.
 
A technological highlight of the 1970s was the “Archimedes”, a diver’s watch combined with a world time mechanism. For the 100-year anniversary in 1988, the watchmakers at Bucherer designed a pocket-watch in the style of the 1880s.
 
Carl F. Bucherer concentrated on mechanical wristwatches and own developments such as the Archimedes Perpetual in 1994. In 2000 the brand was repositioned and the manufacture started a new line, the Patravi Chronograph GMT.
 
In 2007 the company acquired Techniques Horlogères Appliquées (THA) and created Carl F. Bucherer Technologies in Sainte-Croix, as their own workshop for research, development and production of manufacture movements (for example CFB A1000 calibre presented in 2008) and other functional modules. The Manero line was launched in 2011, and the brand celebrated the 125^th anniversary with the Manero Tourbillon Limited Edition in 2013.

Patravi TravelTec II

In celebration of the 10-year anniversary of the successful Patravi TravelTec family, Carl F. Bucherer is launching a new model: the Patravi TravelTec II. It is a COSC certified automatic chronograph with three time zones displayed on a single dial. The case is slightly bigger (47,7mm) a bit thicker and the lines are sharper, especially on the side of the watch. The dial became cleaner since now the bezel serves as the hour indicator for a third time zone. The monopusher controls the time-zone settings and moves the hour indications from East and West (depending on which direction you are travelling in) and it sets the date both forward and backward along with the hour. On the back of the watch you find an engraved time zone circle with 24 cities, representing 24 major time zones. For the brand the time starts in Lucerne, Switzerland (GMT+1) city of Carl F. Bucherer, so they marked this city in black.

 

Photo credits: Loupiosity.com.
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