Breitling's New Silver Panda Navitimer; Seiko 5 Winter Sports Duo; Zodiac Teams Up With GiantMouse; Trafford Welcomes The Daytripper, Season Two; Habring2 And SJX Release The Chrono-Felix Medicus

Hey friends, welcome back to It’s About Time. I told you I’m launching something on Wednesday. And it’s not for everyone. I’ve been a huge Formula 1 fan for years but then my interest dropped off. Now, I’m trying to get back into it, and it just happened that one of my readers, Daniel, made a Formula 1 Fantasy app. Neither of us are asking you for any money, we just want to have a bit of fun while watching races. In fact, there’s going to be a small prize for the league winner. Check out the announcement here.

In this issue

• Breitling Expands The Navitimer Collection With A Silver Panda Limited Edition For North America

• The Seiko 5 Sports SRPM11 and SRPM13 Are Dedicated To Winter Sports

• Zodiac Teams Up With Cult Knifemaker GiantMouse For A Super Sea Wolf and Dive Knife Set

• Trafford Welcomes Season Two Of Their Everyday Daytripper Collection

• Habring2 And SJX Watches Team Up On Two Versions Of The Chrono-Felix Medicus

• JOIN ME: I’m Starting A Formula 1 Fantasy League To Make Sure I Don’t Miss A Single Race This Season

👂What’s new

1/

Breitling Expands The Navitimer Collection With A Silver Panda Limited Edition For North America

Breitling is having a good few years. But where they’re certainly doing best is in North America. Just last year, I think they released three watches exclusive to NA, as well as two rounds of NFL Collection watches in which they did 32 unique watches, all in very limited quantities, each with branding of one of the 32 NFL teams. So it was only going to be a matter of time before we get another North American limited edition. And this is it, the Breitling Navitimer B01 Chronograph 43 with a silver panda dial.

While the first Navitimers limited to North America came in a very North-American-sized case, their larger 46mm version, the couple of recent ones come in the more manageable 43mm format. The stainless steel case measures 43mm wide, 13.69mm thick and has a lug-to-lug measurement of 49.07 mm. Despite the smaller size, it still has a large 22mm lug width. On top is a domed sapphire crystal, that’s surrounded by a notched bezel. Don’t expect much of water resistance here, you get just 30 meters.

The dial of this edition gets a silver to off-white base, with black sub-dials at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock, which would make it a panda-style dial. The 6 o’clock sub-dial has an integrated date window and there are red details all over — on the central chronograph hand, as well as part of the blue and darker anthracite slide rule bezel that surrounds the dial. The hour and minute hands, as well as the sub-dial hands and the applied hour markers are all made out of red gold.

Inside the watch is the Caliber B01 automatic chronograph, a familiar movement equipped with a column wheel and a vertical clutch. It beats at 4Hz, has a great 70 hour power reserve and is COSC certified. The watch comes on a brown alligator leather strap with white stitching.

The new Breitling Navitimer B01 Chronograph 43 North American Limited Edition will be limited to North Armerica, but I’m not sure if it’s limited in number. Price is set at $10,300. See more on the Breitling website.

2/

The Seiko 5 Sports SRPM11 and SRPM13 Are Dedicated To Winter Sports

OK, this is a weird one for me. Not only am I wickedly late on these (they were announced in December), but they’re also heavily geographically limited, aside from being limited in number. I’ve had the watches on my write-about list for a while, and I really, really like their look. So much so that I will write about them now, so sue me. This is the new Seiko 5 Sports collection maid in collaboration with Thong Sia Group (TSG), which has been Seiko’s retailer for decades in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, and Macau. The SRPM11 and SRPM13, available only in these TSG territories, are dedicated to winter sports and they have great colors.

On the outside, you know these watches. They are the familiar 5KX model, with a guarded crown at 4 o’clock, made out of stainless steel and measuring 42.5mm wide, 13.4mm thick, with a 46mm lug-to-lug. On top is a domed Hardlex crystal, surrounded by a bidirectional rotating bezel. Those bezels have colored inserts in brown or purple, with the first 20 minutes in white. Water resistance is 100 meters.

The dials have a very faint grid-pattern, with the SRPM11 done in purple and the SRPM13 done in brown. Both versions have the classic Seiko 5 Sports layout with lumed applied markers, broad hands and a day-date display at 3 o’clock.

Inside, you’ll find the mediocre but well known 4R36 which beats at 3Hz and has a 41 hour power reserve. It will tell the time, as well as the day and date, but keep in mind that Seiko rates the accuracy of this movement at +45/-35 seconds per day. of course, this is often much better in real life, but it’s still a tough pill to swallow. The watches come on a three-link bracelet closed with a fold-over clasp.,

The new Seiko SRPM11 and SRPM13 are doubly limited — 1,000 pieces of each color will be made and they will only be available through Thong Sia Group–authorized retailers. So, even though the Seiko website says that the watch is sold out, I see that the watches are still available all through Asia. Price is set at SGD 473, which translates to about €317. See more on the Seiko website.

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Zodiac Teams Up With Cult Knifemaker GiantMouse For A Super Sea Wolf and Dive Knife Set

Collaborations are not a stranger in the watch world. Most of them happen between publications and watches. Maybe two huge brands will come together, like Seiko and Pepsi did. But the collabs I adore the most are the ones that brands like Zodiac pull off. Previously, they teamed up with eBay, which is quite the unusual pairing. Now, we have another unexpected collaboration from Zodiac and I love it — they are working with Danish-American knife specialist GiantMouse who has a massive cult following. They’re putting out a duo of a Super Sea Wolf Pro-Diver and a corrosion-resistant dive knife. Very cool.

Being a Super Sea Wolf Pro-Diver, you know what to expect here. It’s a big diver that measures 42mm wide, 14.3mm thick and has a 50mm lug-to-lug measurement. Part of the size can be attributed to the fact that Zodiac wants this to be their performing diver, but also to the fact that it’s water resistant to 300 meters and has ISO 6425 certification. On top is a flat sapphire crystal, surrounded by a bezel with a light blue insert that’s paired with orange markers.

More orange can be found on the dial. The base of the dial is black, but surrounding it is a bright orange chapter ring, with orange-framed markers that are filled with lume. The hands are equally blocky and also filled with lume, while the minute hand is done in orange. Inside is the STP 1-21, which is to be expected as Zodiac and STP are both owned by the Fossil group. The 1-21 is a new version of the STP 1-11 and it beats at 4Hz and has a 40 hour power reserve. The watch comes on a black rubber strap.

The watch is paired with the GiantMouse x Zodiac Dive Knife. It’s intended for underwater use, with a blunt tip to prevent accidental puncturing when handling it with gloves. Structurally it’s made from N360 Satin Steel, which is particularly corrosion resistant for use in salt water. The handle is made from black anodised aluminium with perforated holes to allow water to pass through it. The blade is partially serrated to make it easier to cut through net and rope and there’s a line-cutting slot.

The Zodiac Super Sea Wolf Pro-Diver x GiantMouse Watch and Knife set is available now, priced at $2,295. See more on the Zodiac website.

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Trafford Welcomes Season Two Of Their Everyday Daytripper Collection

I had to go back into the archives of this newsletter to remind myself when the last time is that I wrote about Trafford watches. And, quite shockingly, it seems that I never have. I did share a few reviews of these watches, but I never wrote about their releases. What an incredible oversight on my part. If you don’t know about Trafford watches, they are an Austin, Texas brand led by Nathan Trafford that “embody the spirit of Modern Americana with bold, distinctive designs”. I hardly ever quote brand websites, but this is the perfect description, as Nathan is very much an expert in use of color. If you don’t believe me, just look at Season 2 of their Daytripper collection that is launching today. It also has a pretty fantastic trick up its sleeve.

The Daytripper is imagined to be an everyday watch, with comfortable dimensions and some pretty thought out details all around. The case is made out of stainless steel with a hardening coating applied to it. It measures 39mm wide, 12mm thick and has a 46mm lug-to-lug, which means it will fit a wide variety of wrists. On top and bottom are sapphire crystals, with the top down surrounded by the thinnest of bezels. That allows the crystal to extend all the way to the edge, giving you a great look of the dial. Water resistance is 100 meters.

Speaking of the dials, they are quite something. Let’s start with what the four have in common. They all have a white chapter ring, fully graduated with a 13-24h scale printed in colors that either match or contrast the dial colors. That chapter ring is fully lumed on all four, giving a fantastic effect at night, especially when paired with the applied Arabic numerals at 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock. The rest of the positions have applied lume dots. All four dials also have deeply brushed radiating finishes and the colors, inspired by the changing light of the open road, are sensational. There’s the Eos, which captures the first light of the day, fades from teal on top to apricot at the bottom of the dial. The Solaris catches the wide open sky, with a saturated blue at the top to a lighter blue at bottom. The Eventide look like the last hour before dark, with a maroon at the top and a fiery red toward the base, and bright orange accents at the hour markers. Last, there’s the Vesper, named after the first star that shows up in the night sky and going from an almost black on top to a dark emerald green toward the base. Sensational work.

Inside is the very familiar Miyota 9075. But wait, you might say, isn’t that the cool GMT movement that brought a flyer-style GMT to the masses thanks to its low price? Yes, it is. But where’s the third hand and the GMT scale, right? Well, that’s the trick it has up its sleeve. Trafford simplifies the GMT function and uses the jump-hour function of the GMT and applies it to the regular hour hand. That means that you can set the hour hand without affecting the minutes. Very cool. The movement beats at 4Hz, has a 42 hour power reserve and is regulated by Trafford to ±10 seconds per day. The watches can be had on leather straps that have incredible colors, or you can opt for a three-link metal bracelet that has a quick release and a tool-less micro adjust on the clasp.

The new Trafford Daytripper Season 2 collection launches today and is priced at $799 on leather straps or $948 on the bracelet. See more on the Trafford website.

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Habring2 And SJX Watches Team Up On Two Versions Of The Chrono-Felix Medicus

How can you not be madly in love with Habring² watches. Not only are they one of the rare watchmakers to be based in Austria, and not only are they drop-dead gorgeous, and not only are they largely hand made and in-house developed, they are also surprisingly affordable. Not cheap, but affordable for what they are. They should easily be selling for at least 3x the price. They are also great friends to have in the watch industry, it seems, as they often partner with watch media to release special editions of their great watches. The latest collaboration happens with the Singapore-based SJX Watches blog. This is the new Habring² x SJX Chrono-Felix Medicus, a very good looking duo of monopusher doctor’s watches.

As the name suggests, the collaboration is based on the Chrono-Felix, which has a very classic 40s and 50s shape with thin lugs, a stepped bezel and a box-shaped sapphire crystal on top. The proportions are also quite appealing, measuring 38.5mm wide and 11.2mm thick. The cases have two different finishes, depending on the dial you get — the silver dial comes in a brushed case with polished accents, while the grey dial gets sandblasted finishes. Both cases have a crown at 3 o’clock and a monopusher at 2 o’clock. Water resistance is 30 meters.

The dials, where the collaboration is most evident, is the result of a group of physicians, among them the owner of the first Habring² × SJX collaboration, approached the blog and watchmaker with a request for a true doctor’s watch. And it really is one. It has a multi-scale chronograph, which helps doctors. Around the periphery is a snailed flange with a pulsometer scale, followed by a respiration scale from 5 to 25, while the center of the dial has a snailed tachymeter scale. You get Breguet numerals and dot hour markers, polished leaf-shaped hands and a sub-dial at 12 o’clock to track 30 minutes. Love that detail. As mentioned, you get either a silver dial with blued hands, while the other has a grey dial and rose gold-plated accents.

Inside, you’ll find the in-house calibre Habring² A11C-H0 which Habring developed on the iconic Valjoux 7750 base. It’s a hand-wound monopusher chronograph with cam-lever architecture. It beats at 4Hz, with a 48 hour power reserve. Decorations include polished edges, perlage, and steel chronograph components finished by independent watchmaker Pöhlmann-Bresan. The watches come on a grey or blue leather strap.

The new Habring² x SJX Chrono-Felix Medicus is limited to 25 pieces per color and deliveries begin in May. Price is set at €7,750, of which €700 will be donated to children’s medical charities in Singapore and Austria. See more on the SJX website.

JOIN ME: I’m Starting A Formula 1 Fantasy League To Make Sure I Don’t Miss A Single Race This Season

As a kid, I was wild about Formula 1. I vividly remember being on a lake ferry somewhere in Germany or Austria, probably 10 years old, huddled around a single tiny TV on the boat with a bunch of grownups. I’m fairly certain that it was the Belgian Grand Prix, and you could hardly see the cars screaming around one of the greatest races of all time in a downpour that made everything invisible. The star of the race was, of course, Schumacher who was crushing everyone else on track, until he spectacularly smashed into Coulthard who was a lap behind him. What a cool time for Formula 1.

Quickly after that, maybe four years later, I kind of lost interest. I haven’t even followed the results for decades. Until Drive to Survive. A lot of people hated on the Neflix series for bringing new fans to the sport — I still struggle to see how this is a bad thing — but it should also be credited for brining in people like me who left the sport and the series peaked my interest once again. So, the more I watched it, the more my interest for F1 grew. Last season, I even started watching the races again.

But now, I would like to share that passion with you. At least those among you that also like Formula 1. Despite studying in the US, I never got into fantasy sports. I just couldn’t understand how the worked. And then something happened a few weeks ago. One of the readers of this newsletter, Daniel, reached out to me and told me he started Motospro, an app that was fantasy F1, but actually fun. This was intriguing. Daniel told me he’d been running his own F1 fantasy league for years — just a spreadsheet shared among friends and family — and the response was so good that he decided to turn it into a proper platform.

Well, check this out. I’m starting the first It’s About Time F1 Fantasy League. Traditionally, F1 fantasy was so complicated, I didn’t even want to look at this. This one is super simple. Here’s what’s going to happen:

1. Before each race, pick one driver and one constructor.

2. Watch them perform.

3. Earn points if they outperform expectations.

There are 24 races on this year’s calendar, which means 24 chances to call an underdog right, to gamble on rain in Spa or a Ferrari comeback in Monza, and to talk way too much about it in between. Points are earned based on real race results and how well your picks exceed expectations inferred from Vegas odds. By season’s end, the player with the most points takes the crown.

Neither Daniel nor I make any money from this. We just want to have some fun while watching Formula 1, and I would love it if you could join us. In fact, there’s going to be a small prize for the league winner.

So, here’s the plan. You can download the app from Motospro. But hurry up because the season starts next weekend!

Set up your account and then join the league. The name is It’s About Time and the password for the league is formulaleague.

This is going to be cool, can’t wait to get this rolling. If you want to get into a WhatsApp group for the league, email me and we can set that up.

FOR WATCH CLUB MEMBERS Watch School Wednesday: Understanding the Free‐Sprung Balance and Why High‐End Brands Swear by It

What makes a free‐sprung balance different—and why it matters on the wrist. Read it here.

⏲️End links

A bunch of links that might or might not have something to do with watches. One thing’s for sure - they’re interesting

• Non-Japanese athletes have competed in sumo, but no nation has swept the sport like Mongolia. Since the early ’90s, Mongolian wrestlers have succeeded at the highest levels, even becoming yokuzuna—grand champions—at disproportionate rates. Meanwhile, Japan has seen the rise of its own version of MAGA: the far-right Sanseito party, buoyed by fervent nativism (and young, extremely online voters), has gained increasing power in Japanese parliament. Tokyo resident and sumo fan Joshua Hunt sets out to trace these converging paths.

• A dark horse competitor takes on the “LeBron James of College Excel.” A crowd member raises a sign that reads trust your cells. While competition propels Jesse Dougherty’s whirlwind tour of this year’s Microsoft Excel Collegiate Challenge, he keeps close tabs on an engaging crew of competitors as they throw down.

• For Jon Tattrie, it all started in 2020 with a mysterious email about a larger-than-life former colleague from the Halifax Daily News. Tattrie hadn’t connected with Charles Saunders since they were both laid off from the tabloid back in 2008. Suddenly, a stranger, Saunders’s friend, had written Jon to learn anything they could: What had happened to Charles Saunders? In this excerpt of his new book, To Leave a Warrior Behind: The Life and Stories of Charles R. Saunders, the Man Who Rewrote Fantasy for The Walrus, Tattrie digs in to discover a whole new side of a man he thought he knew.

👀Watch this

One video you have to watch today

For a millisecond there, I thought Daft Punk got together again and put out a new song. Still, good video.

Thanks for reading,
Vuk