News
Introducing the Richard Mille RM 35-03 Automatic Rafael Nadal
News
Introducing the Richard Mille RM 35-03 Automatic Rafael Nadal
The Low-Down
Rafael Nadal doesn’t just make news headlines for his wins on the tennis court, but also for wearing million-dollar Richard Mille tourbillon watches in competition. To be sure, he swings on his left and wears the RM 27 on his right. Still, this is no way to treat a tourbillon, as sensible as going jogging with a cup of tea in one’s hand — and precisely why the partnership is such a powerful one. Two editions of the RM 27 manual-wind tourbillons have been released, and for those who are drawn to Nadal’s court exploits but desire something simpler and ‘easier’, the RM 35-02 Automatic Winding Rafael Nadal would be their pick. This latest, the RM 35-03, makes it the fourth Richard Mille watch to bear Nadal’s name.
Three years in development, the butterfly rotor consists of titanium arms mounted with heavy metal weight segments, activated by a separate gear train via a dedicated push-piece at 7 o’clock. In winding mode, the two segments are positioned together in a semicircle, much like conventional rotors seen on most other self-winding movements. This dynamically unbalanced state allows the rotor to swing at every arm movement and wind the mainspring in the process to power the watch. At the press of the button at ‘7’, the two weight segments split up to a 180-degree angle, attaining a balanced position and the winding process is suspended, thus preventing excessive winding of the movement.
IMHO
If Richard Mille makes a car, would it look like one? Or a watch? In any case, each new RM timepiece that rolls out of the factory is infused with radical vision that engineering goes to extremes to realise.
Richard Mille calls its latest user-configurable variable geometry rotor “butterfly” rotor because that’s what it looks like when deployed. It also looks like a battle axe. To the competition.
Tech Specs
Movement: Self-winding RMAL2, titanium baseplate and bridges, patented variable geometry butterfly rotor, function selector, 55 hours power reserve
Functions: Hours, minutes, seconds, crown mode, rotor state indicator
Case: White Quartz TPT with caseband in Carbon TPT or blue Quartz TPT with caseband in white Quartz TPT, 43.15 x 49.95 x 13.15 mm, display caseback, water resistant to 50 meters