2017 is the 15th anniversary of the Seamaster Aqua Terra, and, in addition to the restyled 3-hand Seamaster, Omega is introducing a new Seamaster Aqua Terra Worldtimer, in a limited 87-piece platinum edition. As a world time watch, it comes as quite a surprise considering Omega’s pilasters of diving watches, 3-handers and chronographs.
Case and strap
The platinum-gold case is fairly heavy given its 43 mm size. It has the characteristic twisted lugs and the new truncated conical crown seen on other new Seamaster models. The crown is screw-down, contributing to a water resistance of 15 bar, 150 metres. The strap is in leather with a platinum-gold folding buckle.
Dial with Paris replaced by Bienne
World-time watches have a distinctive appearance created by its fundamental elements, a city ring at the edge, a 24-hour disc with day/night indication that rotates once a day to display the present time in each of the time zones, and a central world map. In this piece, the outer ring is in sandblasted platinum-gold, with the teak-like fluting that recalls the deck of a yacht and establishes a link with the other pieces in the new Seamaster collection. The cities are in blue for standard times, black for cities with summer time, and red for London. The GMT+1 city is Bienne, location of the Omega factory, instead of the usual Paris. I guess that they can get away with this for this very limited edition, but I think that Paris will return in later gold and unlimited steel versions.
Hand-painted world map
The central world map is in sapphire crystal, with a hand-painted map, in a selection of colours that gives it a unique appearance, different to most other world timer watches. Hands and indices are in yellow gold with luminescent paint. The date window at 6 o’clock is coherent with the other new Seamaster models.
Just the 24-hour ring revolves
From what I can see, the Omega Aqua Terra Worldtimer is the most basic form of world time watch, with a fixed cities ring, and just the 24-hour ring that revolves once a day. Its design places the 24-hour ring away from the city indications but the hour markers help you relate one scale to the other. The watch has no pushers: everything is adjusted from the crown. The watch is powered by the calibre 8939 movement, which has two mainspring barrels providing 60 hours’ power reserve, and a co-axial escapement. The balance runs at 25,200 vibrations per hour, 3.5 Hertz. The movement has METAS Maser Chronometer certification, which includes resistance to magnetic fields of up to 15,000 gauss. The movement can be viewed through the sapphire caseback, and it has a gold rotor and balance bridge, and decoration with Côtes de Genève
Price and availability
The Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra Worldtimer Platinum, reference 220.93.43.22.99.001, will be available in boutiques from December 2017, at a price of €45,800, $48,600. See the Omega website for further details.
