It is angled inwards, which protects the surface as well as directing all attention to the watch face. The bezel has engraved markers every five minutes, with the last fifteen minutes in red. If you want to change your diving time you need to be both dextrous and determined. You have to depress the pusher at 12 o’clock with one finger and the 6 o’clock pusher with another finger and squeeze hard to make it turn. Richard Mille decided to take the logic somewhat further than the traditional ratchet. The bezel of a dive watch should be capable of rotating in just one direction, and it must be lockable. An engraved red or green indicator shows what position the crown is in – red means the crown has been deactivated and the pushers immobilised. Rather than the usual four or five firm turns of the crown, the RM032 can be hermetically sealed by performing a half-turn of an additional ring at the base of the crown. Richard Mille has therefore added some special safety features. The risk is multiplied by three in the case of a diving chronograph with two pushers, like the RM032. Water resistance is generally a major issue in the vicinity of the crown, a natural opening into the watch that has to be secured. But the shape of the lugs and the curved caseback ensure a snug fit on wrists of all sizes, like a limpet on its rock. The size of the watch might have given it a tendency to slip on the wrist, making it vulnerable to catching on unexpected outcrops of rock, coral reefs or shipwrecks. There’s no risk of it being crushed by water pressure, but it could have been prone to other problems. The case of the RM032, in titanium, black DLC-treated titanium or gold (pink or white gold – but these aren’t strictly dive watches) measures 50 mm across for a depth of 17.8 mm. The case must be waterproof – a 300-metre depth rating is usual. Diving watches are by their nature highly technical, as they have to fulfil a number of functional criteria, and Richard Mille treats them as a rigorous technical exercise. The RM032, a perfect synthesis of the company’s technical expertise, comes somewhere between the two. It is one of a trio, the other members of which are the breathtakingly complex – and expensive – RM025 Tourbillon chronograph, and the simpler RM028. First, it’s round, a notable exception for the brand, which generally favours the tonneau shape. The RM032 has two particularly unusual features among Richard Mille’s collections.
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