Back in 2010, the news of tennis champion Rafael Nadal’s RM027 wristwatch went around the world in a way that timepiece news seldom does.
There were two main reasons for this. For one, tennis players just about never wear their timepieces on court. “In 2010 here at Roland Garros, it was the first time I played with a watch,” Nadal confirmed on Saturday as the 2015 edition of the tournament was getting underway. “Richard put a lot of work into making the most amazing, extreme watch I have ever seen.”
Aside from the obvious fact that something poking the wrist is not a desirable state of being for a tennis player, the G forces and shock created are also not good for the mechanical timepiece. In fact, I highly doubt any watch could stand up to several hours of Nadal-style kamikaze tennis each and every day for very long.
The other, perhaps more interesting reason from a media perspective was that this watch cost just about half a million dollars.
“Even so,” Nadal says today, “it is not a product to show off, even if it is beautiful. It’s a real product. It costs so much because it is an extreme watch. A lot of work goes into producing the best watch possible, [it shows its] real value [in that way].”
Just digest that for a moment: a sports watch without so-called noble metals, ice, bling, gemstones, or anything else that the layman could identify as precious to justify costing that much money. And a half-million-dollar mechanical watch with tourbillon that the sportsman takes into the shower, pounds to hell on the court, and even subjects to frequent saunas, whirlpools, and all kinds of sports and treatments.
Any other watch would have crumbled after just a few weeks of the pounding that this tiger of a tennis champion was subjecting it to. But not the RM027 RN; it was specifically made for that abuse despite its price tag and the fact that it contains what is usually a fairly sensitive tourbillon escapement. In fact, the RM027 was the first sports watch to ever contain a tourbillon, which is considered an element of the highest art of the watchmaker.
This weekend in Paris, Richard Mille and Rafael Nadal introduced the third RM 027, aptly named the RM 27-02. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed that even Richard Mille could create a watch that’s that extreme, able to take more of a pounding – and naturally costing even more money, coming in at a cool three-quarters of a million.
And, if you like the kind of technical visuals that Richard Mille’s watches are famous for, you are absolutely going to love the look of this timepiece with its distressed carbon-quartz case. So you probably want to know first off what could justify such a price tag. And you’d be right to ask, of course.
“As Rafa just said, we do tons of development, studies, and tests only to release a few watches. But that’s our choice,” Richard Mille explained the phenomenon in Paris on Saturday as the two men got together to talk about the latest addition to the Richard Mille family of timepieces.
“We have a limited production. When you divide all those developments by the number of pieces we produce, you come out with a very high cost. And this is why we are considered the Formula 1 of the watch business, because in Formula 1 you have exactly the same sort of situation: you develop all the time and you release only a few units. But this is what we love to do.” The brand-new RM 27-02 is limited to just 50 pieces.
Then you’d probably like to know what makes this new model even more resistant to Rafa’s insistent daily beatings.
In contrast to the original model, which was certified to withstand G forces up to 800 Gs, the new RM 27-01 is certified to withstand a full 5,000 Gs, for one. “But we test over that amount,” Mille was quick to add as I asked about this. “We work with very different parameters because the requirements [for each of our ambassadors’ watches] are never the same. Rafa’s requirements are very different from those that golfer Bubba Watson might need, whose watch experiences shock every 10 or 20 minutes. Or polo player Pablo MacDonough, who is receives the mallet on the watch. Or Felipe Massa in Formula 1, whose watch suffers massive vibrations and G-forces. [Read G-Forces At Work: Richard Mille’s RM 36-01 Competition G-Sensor Sébastien Loeb for more on this phenomenon in racing.] So each time we work with different objectives and we try to adapt. And this is why our products are really well studied for each case. When Rafa is playing there are plenty of aspects, and water resistance is also a very important issue because some prototypes needed increased amounts because of his sweat, etc.”
Also for this reason, the new RM 27-02 is outfitted with a highly resistant sapphire crystal instead of the lighter-weight Plexiglas of the first model.
For another, the case has been made even harder, lighter, and more resistant by using two new carbon fiber materials that Richard Mille developed in conjunction with North Thin Ply Technology.
And yet another technical advancement is how the case back and case band is formed: instead of the usual way of joining the separate parts, on this watch these two elements are one part that has been machined out of a block of the carbon fiber material and now acts like a protective cradle for the movement. Likewise, the base plate – also made of NTPT – is just one solid part even if it looks like several skeletonized bridges that have been joined. This adds to the stability.
And the technical beauty. I must say that I find the new “distressed” look of this innovative carbon fiber funky, interesting, and really, really, really attractive. If you’d like a full rundown of the technical specifics of NTPT carbon, TPT quartz, the effect of G forces created during a typical Nadal tennis match, and insider tennis opinions as well as some original photography of this highly original timepiece, please read Richard Mille RM 27-02 For Rafael Nadal: The Quintessential Sports Tourbillon.
At the same time as the premier of the new RM 27-02 in Paris, Richard Mille also launches a 50-piece limited edition of the RM 035 for the Americas, which extends the second Nadal line that premiered in 2011. While the RM 027 line contains a tourbillon, the RM 035 is the less expensive “baby” version without a tourbillon. This new version also utilizes one of the new case materials that the RM 27-02 boasts, a case band and crown crafted in NTPT carbon, which is composed of multiple layers of woven carbon fibers.
Its colorful red and yellow accents lend it almost as vibrant a personality as the new 27-02, while the sapphire crystal case back allows for ideal viewing of skeletonized Caliber RMUL1. Compared to the 3.35 grams that the RM 27-02’s tourbillon movement weighs, this manually wound movement outfitted with twin spring barrels for a 55-hour power reserve is only slightly heavier at 4.3 grams. Measuring a stately 48 x 39.70 x 12.25 mm, it is available at Richard Mille boutiques and authorized Richard Mille retailers in North and South America for $120,000.
Nadal simultaneously introduced his new charitable foundation on the eve of the first day of play of the 2015 edition of Roland Garros: the RafaNadal Foundation, whose mission is to aid socially discriminated children and teenagers in making better lives for themselves through the idea of sport offering a new promise of hope. The foundation established by Nadal and his family focuses on kids in Spain and India and partners with other foundations and organizations with similar objectives and proven experience. Richard Mille has regularly contributed to this foundation and is now an official partner.
For more information on that or to learn how you too can make a difference, please visit www.fundacionrafanadal.org.
Elizabeth Doerr is the editor-in-chief of Quill & Pad, an online magazine that keeps a watch on time.
