A rarer version of the Regate this time, and one with a black rather than a silver dial.

(Click pictures to enlarge)

What makes this Aquastar different to the other Regate models on the blog is the design of the case and bracelet. It has what is called a ‘Lobster Tail’ or ‘Armadillo’ bracelet which consists of overlapping sections of metal, rather than being made up of independent links like a traditional bracelet.

While it sounds like more like an instrument of torture than a watch bracelet, it is surprisingly comfortable as the bracelet forms a natural band around the wrist.

The same case and bracelet was also used by Tissot who released a dual Tissot/Aquastar branded version of the Regate, and also a similarly styled chronograph fitted with a Lemania cal. 1341.

The calibre in the Regate is the Lemania cal. 1345 which is a modified version of the cal. 134x chronograph. Rather than repeating how the timer mechanism works, I’ll direct interested parties to this post for more details.

The watch arrived in running condition, but it hadn’t been serviced for many years. It was almost impossible to set the time or wind the watch manually, and the power reserve was minimal.

When disassembling the watch I noticed something odd about the dial. Underneath the “REGATE Automatic” lettering on the dial, it had once said “REGATTA Automatic”, the name of the Heuer variant of this watch. The deleted lettering was just legible using a microscope.

I presume that the dials for all models will have been produced in the same factory, but whether the Aquastar models were to be branded “REGATTA” rather than “REGATE” at some time, or they just had some Heuer dials left over and re-used them, who knows?

A movement service cured the winding and setting problems, so after a clean up, the watch was back to its best.

The owner of this watch, Mark Reichardt, has a keen interest in sailing timers. If you have any questions or information about them, especially the vintage mechanical models, I’m sure he’d like to hear from you. You can contact him at the following email address; j.m.reichardt@planet.nl

Rich.

** Many thanks to Mark for letting me feature his watch on the blog. **

To quote Monty Python…. “And now for something completely different”. A Tissot Seastar Electronic.

(Click pictures to enlarge)

From the front there is little to distinguish this Tissot Seastar from many of its 1970’s stablemates. The word ‘Electronic’ on the dial is a clue that there is something different going on here, and opening the caseback reveals an electronic or transistorised calibre, the ESA cal. 9154 Dynatron.

Transistorised watches form an interesting chapter in wristwatch history. They were first introduced between the true electric watches of the 1950’s, such as the Hamilton 500, and the earliest quartz watches which appeared on the market in 1967.

They can be thought of as hybrid calibres in that they have a balance, hairspring and regulator just like a mechanical calibre, but the mainspring is replaced by a battery and an electronic module. The obvious advantage is that being battery powered they never need to be wound, but also the power from the battery remains constant unlike the torque from a mainspring which varies depending on the state of wind.

To say that the watch has a traditional balance assembly isn’t exactly true, here is a picture of the balance suspended on a balance tack.

The balance wheel consists of two discs which pass above and below the induction coil on the electronic module as the balance rotates. On each disc are two magnets which are used to convert the electric charge from the induction coil into electromagnetic energy. You can see the magnets on the lower disc in the picture above, the upper disc has two identical magnets on the underside.

To compensate for the weight of these four magnets, the lower disk also has a counterweight (see inset). As the balance wheel has to be poised to minimise positional errors, just like a traditional balance wheel, several holes are drilled into the counterweight to achieve this.

At the heart of the calibre is the electronic module, which consists of a stop contact, a transistor, two capacitors, a resistor, and two induction coils. Although it looks like a single induction coil it is actually two coils wound together, one is connected to the base contact of the transistor and the second to the emitter.

Here is how it works. The key to the circuit is the transistor which acts as a switch. As the first pair of magnets on the balance wheel pass over the induction coils and a positive current is induced in the coil connected to the base of the transistor. This current effectively ‘opens’ the transistor and allows a larger flow oc current from the capacitor/battery through the transistor and down through the second induction coil.

While this is happening the balance rotates further and the second pair of magnets are over the coils just as the second coil is charged which repels the magnets, giving an electromagnetic push to the balance wheel. When the balance returns in the opposite direction, the first pair of magnets induce a negative current in the coil which ‘closes’ the transistor, cutting the power from the battery.

The system is undoubtedly ingenious and it is a shame that this invention, along with many others, was effectively “kicked into the long grass” with the introduction of quartz watches. You still see a few of these watches around, but they aren’t really that collectible due to the lack of available spare parts and difficulty of repair.

I bought the Tissot in a non-running state which was a bit of a gamble, but I did have another watch with the same calibre which I could use as a donor, so I was confident that I would be able to make one good watch out of the two.

The original hands were pretty tired so I found some suitable replacements, and after cleaning the case, fitting a new crystal and battery, the restoration was complete.

Rich.

There has been quite a few chronographs on the blog recently so here is something completely different, a ‘Directime’ from the French company Lip, one of the strangest watches to feature on the blog so far.

(Click pictures to enlarge)

Known as the ‘De Baschmakoff’ this watch was first released in the early 1970’s when Lip commissioned a number of architectural, interior and graphic designers to develop a series of groundbreaking watches. This model was designed by Prince François de Baschmakoff in 1971.  (I wrote recently about another model from the same series, the Lip Mach 2000, you can read that post here).

Rather than displaying the time with hands in the traditional manner, in this watch the time is represented by three spinning disks, one each for the hours, minutes and seconds. The red line on the crystal is used as the reference point for the current time.

The movement inside this watch is a manually wound A. Schild cal. 1902, which is a standard mechanical manually wound movement but with modifications to support the three disks. Here is a picture of the movement with the dial removed so you can see the disks.

This style of watch is known as a ‘jump hour’ because rather than rotating constantly  like a traditional hour disk, the hour disk springs forward when the hour changes. With the second and minute disks removed you can see the mechanism that makes this happen.

In the centre of the hour disk is a separate section containing a coiled spring. The hour wheel sits over the cannon pinion like a regular hour wheel, but rather than the whole disk turning, only the centre section turns, building up power in the coiled spring as the hour passes. The outer edge of the hour disk is stepped and the disk is held stationary by the release lever.

The changing of the hour is triggered by the minute disk which has a raised point on its outer edge between ‘0′ and ‘5′ (see inset above). As the end of the hour approaches the raised point on the minute disk begins to push out the release lever, until it is eventually pushed off the step and …. ‘choing!’… the power from the coiled spring is released, the hour disk jumps forward to the next hour, the release lever hits the next step and the process begins again.

As you can see in the pictures, the mechanism is quite fragile and while good in principle, it didn’t prove strong enough to handle the rigours of daily use, relegating the watch to more of a novelty item than a serious timepiece.

This particular watch came to me with a broken hour spring and other sundry problems. Also supplied was a second watch to use for parts, so after puzzling out how it was supposed to work, I was able to make one working watch from the two.

Like many of the designs from the 1970’s, Lip have chosen to release a modern version of the De Baschmakoff in a variety of styles, this time the watch is  fitted with a Swiss Ronda quartz rather than a mechanical movement.

For more details, and to see the current Lip range, visit www.lip-horloges.nl.

Rich.

** Many thanks to Henrik de Keizer for letting me feature his watch on the blog. **

Another sailing timer on the blog, this time from the company Memosail.

(Click pictures to enlarge)

Produced throughout the 1970’s, you can still find a good number of these Memosail timers for sale on the auction sites and forums, which is a testament to their durability and popularity. They were produced in a number of case shapes and styles over the years, a selection of which you can see below.

You may have noticed that some of the dials were marked “Memosail” while others were marked “V.I.P. Memosail”. The significance of the V.I.P. I couldn’t say (apart from the obvious) as mechanically all the watches are identical, and a search on the internet didn’t uncover anything specific.

The Memosail timers are slightly different in operation than the Aquastar sailing timers which I’ve written about in the past. In the Aquastar timers the countdown is signified by a number of coloured dots on the dial which change colour as the countdown progresses. In the Memosail timers a separate disc rotates underneath the dial, counting down from 10 minutes to the start of the race, and rather than being in constant motion like the Aquastars, the disc is only advanced every 30 seconds. The centre second hand rotates constantly around the dial on both watches during the countdown as you would expect.

The Aquastar timers have just one button on the side of the case which is used to start the timer whereas the Memosail is more like a traditional chronograph and has two buttons; the upper button starts and stops the timer, and the lower button performs the reset.

The movement inside the Memosail is a Valjoux Cal. 7737 which is a modified version of the Cal. 7733/4 cam lever chronograph used in many popular chronographs during the 1970’s. While the timer function does it’s job admirably, its design is somewhat simple compared to the mechanics of the Lemania cal. 1345 used in the Aquastar timers (see this post for more details).

With the dial removed you can see the timer ring, the numbers are printed onto the outer edge of a transparent plastic ring which is mounted on a gear that slips over the hour wheel.

Underneath the timer ring you can see the large gear attached to axle of the chronograph minute runner. In a regular 7733/4 movement this axle would extend out onto the dial and the minute sub-register hand would be mounted on it. In a regular 7733/4 a running second subdial is also provided, but as the disc for the sailing timer disc covers the majority of the dial side of the movement that isn’t possible on the cal. 7737.

On the going side of the calibre all the parts are exactly the same as the cal. 7733/4 with the exception of the centre chronograph wheel. Instead of having one chronograph finger to move the register forward every minute, in the 7737 the wheel has two finger’s directly opposite each other to move the register forward every 30 seconds.

There was little wrong with the watch in this post except that the timer had been set up incorrectly and didn’t reset to the 10 minute mark. The dial had lost a little of it’s gold ’sparkle’ too over the years but unfortunately I couldn’t do anything about that. I did however relume the hands while I had it apart which freshened up the cosmetics a little.

Memosail are still produced sailing timers, but just like Aquastar, the mechanical versions of the watches are no longer produced so you’ll have to ‘make do’ with a quartz timer.  If you would like to see their latest offerings you can do that here.

The owner of this watch, Mark Reichardt, has a keen interest in sailing timers. If you have any questions or information about them, especially the vintage mechanical models, I’m sure he’d be interested in hearing from you. You can contact him at the following email address; j.m.reichardt@planet.nl

Rich.

** Many thanks to Mark for letting me feature his watch on the blog. **

Rumour has it that Santa is on his way again…

… let’s hope he makes it!

Have a great Christmas and New Year, and all the best for 2010.

Rich.