IWC Cousteau Divers 2006 LE
I should probably preface this post by explaining that I love watches. Always have, always will. I could bore you with what about them fascinates me, but I'll leave that for another time. What this does mean however is that you get to read boring watch nerdiness as my collection grows. Today's lesson is on one of my favorites and you can usually catch me sporting it if I happen to be wearing anything else blue ... including shoelaces.
The IWC Cousteau Divers 2006 LE
Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, scientist, photographer and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the aqua-lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française.
Cousteau was born in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, Gironde, to Daniel and Élisabeth Cousteau. He is generally known in France as le commandant Cousteau ("Commander Cousteau"). Worldwide, he was commonly known as Jacques Cousteau.
Calypso is the name of a ship that Jacques-Yves Cousteau, one of the most important researchers in oceanography, equipped as a mobile laboratory for field research.
Calypso was originally a wooden-hulled minesweeper built for the British Royal Navy by the Ballard Marine Railway Company of Seattle, Washington, USA. She was a BYMS (British Yard Minesweeper) Mark 1 Class Motor Minesweeper, laid down on 12 August 194 and launched on 21 March 1942. She was commissioned into the Royal Navy in February 1943 and assigned to active service in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1944 she was laid up at Malta and finally struck from the Naval Register in 1947.
After World War II she became a ferry between Malta and the island of Gozo, and was renamed after the nymph Calypso, whose island of Ogygia was mythically associated with Gozo.
The Irish millionaire and former MP Thomas Loel Guinness bought Calypso in 1950 and leased her to Cousteau for a symbolic one franc a year. Cousteau restructured and transformed her into an expedition vessel and support base for diving, filming and oceanographic research.
Calypso carried advanced equipment, including one- and two-man mini submarines developed by Cousteau, diving saucers, and underwater scooters. The ship was also fitted with a see-through "nose", an observation chamber three metres below the waterline, and was modified to house scientific equipment and a helicopter pad.
A barge accidentally rammed Calypso and sank her in the port of Singapore in 1996. She was raised, and towed to France. After a time in the port of Marseilles, she was towed to the basin of the Maritime Museum of La Rochelle in 1998, where she was intended to be an exhibit. A long series of legal and other delays kept any restoration work from beginning. At one time it was rumoured that Calypso had been sold to Carnival Cruise Lines for the symbolic sum of one Euro. Carnival stated that they intend to give the vessel a 1.3 million dollar restoration, and then likely moor her in the Bahamas as a museum ship. As of the end of 2006, most of the equipment has been removed from her upper decks, and she sat open to the elements.
Hommage to the spirit of Jaques-Yves Cousteau, the man in the red woollen cap, who opened the eyes of mankind not only to the magic of our oceans, but also to the threat faced by them.
Thanks to Sara Flemming for taking this shot for me.
The proximity to the ideas of the most famous Frenchman of modern times finds expression in a quite unusual way in the Aquatimer Special Edition: Every watch incorporates a small piece of the legendary Calypso, the first vessel from which Cousteau and his crew dived on the world’s oceans.
Packaged in water-resistant fashion inside the Aquatimer Chronograph “Cousteau Divers”. A small sliver from a piece of the original timbers bearing the silhouette of the Calypso is held securely in place behind the sapphire glass on the steel back of every watch. It is intended as a tribute to the “man of the seas”, who made research history with his famous ship. “Tribute to Calypso” appears on the back of the watch together with the consecutive limited-edition serial number. Inlaid in the steel back of the watch and secure behind the sapphire glass is a sliver of timber from the converted minesweeper, presented to the marine researcher by the Irish brewer Noel Guinness shortly after the end of the war.
Thanks to Stephen Hubbard for taking this shot for me.
The IWC Réf IW3782 features a mechanical rotating inner bezel, mechanical chronograph movement, day and date display, small seconds with stop function, automatic winding, IWC bracelet system with push-button release safety clasp, case back with an inlaid sliver of timber from the Calypso, special back engraving, limited to 2,500 watches
From IWC's data sheet:
- Movement Caliber - 79320 (ETA 7750)
- Vibrations 28,800/h / 4 Hz
- Jewels 25
- Power reserve - 44 hours
- Winding - automatic
- Case Material - stainless steel
- Glass - sapphire, convex, antireflective coating
- Water-resistant - 12 bar (120 meters)
- Diameter - 44 millimeters
- Height - 16 millimeters
- Weight (stainless steel with rubber strap) - 146 grams