Introducing The Omega Speedmaster Dark Side Of The Moon 'Alinghi'

If you don't follow the extremely expensive and arcane world of competitive yachting, you probably haven't heard of the America's Cup, which is the world's oldest international sporting trophy, having first been run all the way back in 1851. Coincidentally, this is just a few years after Louis Brandt founded La Generale Watch Co. which would go on to produce the first Omega watches, which were so successful that the Omega line eventually became its own brand in 1903. Believe it or not, Switzerland, which is about as landlocked a country as you can get, has nonetheless a very strong sailing tradition thanks to its enormous glacial lakes – in the summer months, Lake Geneva and Lake Neuchatel are swarming with sailboats – and also has its own yachting team. Alinghi is a newcomer, especially compared to the longevity of the America's Cup. The team, founded in 1994, represents the Swiss yacht club Société Nautique de Genève, and surprised a very strong field of competitors in 2003 when it succeeded in defeating New Zealand and taking home the Cup. The team is the brainchild of Swiss entrepreneur Ernesto Bertarelli, and while it ultimately did not retain the Cup, which it gave up to the Golden Gate Yacht Club in 2010 after a successful defense in 2007, it has continued to participate very competitively in other international racing events, sailing the extremely fast and often very dangerous catamaran-hull hydrofoil racing yachts, which are capable going faster than the actual wind speed, and which can hit top speeds of 50 knots. The basic physics are straightforward – catamarans in general and hydrofoils in particular have far less wetted surface than monohull yachts as well as less mass, and with such dramatic reductions in weight and drag, they go like rockets. They are the F1 cars of yachting and, while measures have been taken in recent years to make them less hazardous to sail, they remain, like F1 cars, inherently dangerous, very high-tech, and extremely expensive. As you might expect from a Swiss yacht club's international racing team, Alinghi has partnered with watch brands from the very beginning, starting with Audemars Piguet in 2003, and the Royal Oak Offshore Alinghis were large, regatta-timer chronographs which came in a wide variety of cases and designs, including the AP RO Team Alinghi Forged Carbon, which I believe was the first forged-carbon cased watch from anyone. Currently, Alinghi partners with Omega (the collaboration was announced in May of 2019), and the two have just announced a new watch – a new version of the Speedmaster Dark Side Of The Moon, which features design cues intended to reflect the high-tech world of modern competitive yachting, and which also has a little surprise under the hood. Cosmetically, this is pretty much squarely in the mainstream of Dark Side Of The Moon design, with the signature ceramic bezel and 44.5mm case, along with a tachymeter scale calibrated in miles per hour. Although the watch is not specifically a countdown regatta timer, the minutes totalizer has been customized with a highlighted five-minute arc. Yachting enthusiasts, as well as regatta timer fans, will know that this is because the countdown before a race actually begins is critical; as the wind is blowing and the yachts are constantly in motion, it is impossible for them to wait in a stationary fashion at a starting line. Instead, a starting line is marked by an imaginary line drawn between two buoys, and the committee boat, which regulates the start, makes a signal (traditionally by firing a gun) which marks the beginning of a countdown to the actual start. Once the countdown is concluded, another signal is fired and at that moment the boats are free to cross the line. As whomever crosses first is often apt to win outright, barring accident or mishandling, the five minutes before the start are the scene of frantic maneuvering and frequent close calls. As I am neither a mariner nor a plutocrat, I have attended few regattas, and when I have done, it's because I was covering the race, but I find them very exciting and the boats extremely beautiful (sometimes too exciting – I happened to be a rail monkey a few years back on a gorgeous 1938 Sparkman & Stephens yawl, when another boat came close enough to our stern that you almost might have leapt from one deck to the other. Not wishing to seem chicken, I didn't say anything about it until afterwards, when I asked one of the crew if that wasn't a little close and he said, with feeling, "Yeah ... that was a little close.") Certainly, the cool dark glossiness of the Dark Side Of The Moon is a good match for the construction and engineering that goes into a racing hydrofoil. One of the more interesting features of the watch from a mechanical standpoint is revealed when you take a look at the movement through the caseback. The movement is not, as is often the case with the DSOTM, the automatic co-axial caliber 9300, but rather, a version of the classic Moonwatch caliber 1861 (in this case carrying the number 1865). The movement as well as the dial of the watch have been laser-etched with patterns that reflect the carbon fiber construction of Alinghi's racing hydrofoils. Now, this is not the first time that an 1861 variant has gone into a DSOTM, but in general, the high tech case and bezel (the Dark Side Of The Moon was the first ceramic Moonwatch) have been matched with an equally technically forward-looking movement. The only other DSOTM I've been able to dig up that didn't use the 9300 is the Apollo 8 Dark Side Of The Moon, from 2018, which has an openworked version of the movement that's been given the rugged texture (on non-working surfaces, I hasten to add) of the lunar surface. You will probably have noticed by now that the hours sub-register has been replaced by the Alinghi logo, and there's a little Easter egg here as well – the logo is actually printed onto a disk, which rotates whenever the chronograph is in operation. The use of a thinner movement also means that this is much flatter than usual for the Dark Side Of The Moon Watches, which typically come in at 44.25mm x 16.14mm. The DSOTM Alinghi is 13.80mm thick, which represents a significant height reduction (2.34mm) and should make for a much-altered wrist experience over the standard Dark Side Of The Moon watches. That said, I think this is an interesting move. I also think this might be a watch that at first glance seems intended to appeal to a fairly small audience – yachting fans, obviously; folks interested in regatta timers, Swiss patriots who would be enthused about seeing Alinghi and Omega collaborating. However, if you like the Dark Side Of The Moon aesthetic but have found the case dimensions challenging, this might actually be a watch worth considering – as I've mentioned, an 1861-derived movement is a rarity in this design and it's both an interesting alternative from a design perspective, as well as something potentially of interest to Omega collectors looking for something a bit out of the ordinary run for the collection. (It is, notably, not a limited edition.) A yachting chronograph is always a bit of a niche proposition (either a little or a lot depending on the watch and the yacht), but seeing the 1865 here is a nice change of pace and offers a subtle but definite connection to the Speedmaster's origins as a timepiece for terrestrial, rather than celestial, pursuits. https://www.watchesbiz.co/iwc/ The Omega Speedmaster Dark Side Of The Moon Alinghi: case, 44.25mm x 13.80mm, zirconium oxide ceramic, with ceramic bezel and Super-LumiNova tachymeter scale; box sapphire crystals front and back; water resistance, 5 bar/50 meters. Alinghi logo on start/stop pusher. Movement, Omega caliber 1865 (1861 base), hand-wound three-register chronograph with cam and lever switching system; mainplate with laser etched honeycomb design, chronograph bridge with laser etched carbon fiber design; frequency, 21,600 vph, running in 19 jewels; power reserve, 48 hours. Price, $10,800. https://www.watchesbiz.co/