Horological Meandering

hoseachandra
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Rado Captain Cook Over-Pole. The smallest and thinnest "World Timer"

Finally got it after 6 months of waiting. Currently the smallest and "worldtimer" (more on that later) at 37 mm diameter and 9.8 mm thickness (10.3 mm with box sapphirre crystal). Manually wound Rado Caliber R862, which is modified ETA with 80 hours power reserve and anti magnetic Nivachron balance spring. High tech ceramic bezel with laser engraved cities. Limited edition of 1962 pieces









The watch is completely retro-styled, faithfully similar with the original issue from 70's. From the small size, gradient dial, old style fonts, and beautiful BOR bracelet. Now it is not a true worldtimer, which once you set up, automatically synchronize all the times in 24 cities with local time. Instead, it is a world time zone on your bezel, requires you to manually align your local time zone with local time in the corresponding 24H scale. If you want to do it in other times, you would need to align again. The disadvantage is, of course, you have to manipulate the bezel to see times in other time zones. The advantages are : 1. It does not need any complication on the movement. It is just a simple 3 hander movement. This way Rado managed to make the size small and very thin. More over, the movement is arguably more robust because it requires less parts. 2. It is more easier to see the times on other cities ahead of the current time. Example : if we are in new york city at 9 am. If we want to know what time is now in Tokyo, with a true worldtimer, we can quickly glance at Tokyo in the bezel and read the time in the 24H scale. But what if we want to know what time will be in Tokyo if we want to call someone at 1 pm (4 hours ahead)? With a true worldtimer, we have to do a little math : determine the time difference between NYC and Tokyo, and add the number to 1 pm . This will be more complicated when we are setting up a future online meeting with many parties in different time zones. We have calculate one by one. With this simple world time bezel in this Rado, it is kuch easier. Just align the local time zone/city with 1 pm on the 24H scale, and you can then read times in any other zone instantly. 3. Manually operated bezel means we will interact with this watch more often. It is fun to do while we are in a boring meeting, for example. With a true worldtimer, we can only set it once, we can not further playing with the bezel because it will cancel the time synchronization.



The watch is without flaws. The entire case is highly polished, combined with shiny ceramic bezel, appears a bit too blingy for a tool watch. I wish they made the case in alternating polished and brushed finish to match the beautiful BOR bracelet, which has superb alternating finish. The silver hands on silver sunray brushed dial is pain to read the time in low light. The tiny city names also difficult to read in the low light. Thankfully the hands still has some lume and the stark white laser engraved cities provide nice contrast with black ceramic bezel. The watch should have an automatic movement with screw down crown to befitting the travelling purpose. Instead, rado choose to use manual winding caliber, with the goal to create as thin as possible case. Hence the no screw down crown. At least the water resistant is 100 meters and the caseback is screwed. It is my first and only worldtimer, as i very seldom travelling now, so i dont really need the feature. But it is nice to have something different in the collection . Have a nice monday .