Closed | Important watches – Saturday 14 November 2015

Heuer’s strong ties to the Motorsports have always been well known, but they’ve also made watches designed for aviators, divers and sailors among others. One particularly interesting watch, made for yacht racing, is the “Skipper”. Before a race, boats are circling in a starting area and aren’t allowed to cross the starting line until a certain time. A signal will be given 15 minutes before start and the red-white-and-blue counter on the dial of the watch will then help the boat skipper to count down and plan for how to get a good position.

Heuer introduced the Skipper in 1968 and made seven different executions in small batches until the mid-1980’s. The first one was housed in the 1960’s Carrera case making collectors today call it the “Skipperera”. For all later versions the Autavia case was used instead. Unique for the Skipper among the Heuer chronographs is that the chronograph minute hand jumps every 30 seconds.