THE NEW ‘BAY’ WATCH

Tudor’s Black Bay P01 combines today’s sporty style with a deep dive into the innovations of the past.

While countless watch wearers around the world value having a Tudor on their wrist, few know about the company’s long history with the U.S. Navy. Beginning in the 1950s, Tudor began supplying the Navy with divers’ watches, and it eventually found lasting success with the Oyster Prince Submariner 7928. However, in 1967, the company began to develop a new watch for the Navy—one that would meet the specifications decreed by the U.S. government and incorporate the results of the latest research into functionality and ergonomics carried out by the brand’s top-notch engineers.

This ambitious project, code named “Commando,” never came to fruition, but many of its features can be found in the just-released Tudor Black Bay P01 model (the P01 stands for prototype 1). This cross between a diver’s watch and a navigator’s watch has been crafted in a contemporary sporty spirit, while harking back to innovations developed more than 50 years ago. For example, the Black Bay P01 model does not literally reproduce the prototype’s unusual hinged-link system, but borrows liberally from it, providing a stop system for the bidirectional rotating bezel via a mobile endlink at 12 o’clock.

The Manufacture Caliber MT5612 that drives the Black Bay P01 meets Tudor’s high standards for robustness, longevity and reliability. It features an openwork rotor that is satin-brushed with sand-blasted details, and its bridges and plate have alternating polished sand-blasted surfaces and laser decorations. Moreover, the Caliber MT5612 is certified as a chronometer by the Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute. And, as might be expected, the Black Bay P01 is waterproof to 200 meters.

The watch is fitted with a domed matte-black dial with painted luminescent hour markers; it adopts the signature Tudor hands with their characteristic angular shape, known to collectors as “snowflake;” and the 42mm steel case is entirely satin-brushed for a matte finish. The watch’s special hybrid strap has a rubber base with the “snowflake” motif on the back, finished with a brown leather trim. Finally, with a 70-hour power reserve, a wearer can take off the watch on Friday evening and put it back on again Monday morning without having to reset and wind it.

The result of subtle combinations of historical aesthetic codes and contemporary watch technology, the entire Black Bay line, especially the P01, brings together the best qualities of 60 years of Tudor divers’ watches, while remaining firmly anchored in the present.

The Tudor Black Bay P01, which stands for prototype 1, was inspired by a 1960s design for the U.S. Navy.