Panerai’s commitment to classic yachts and the regattas they frequent continues with the latest limited edition created for that series. This time, to celebrate the Panerai Transat Classique 2019, “the most extreme classic race in the world – 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean”, Panerai has announced the colourful Luminor Regatta Transat Classique, an exclusive special edition of only 150 examples.

This will be an epic challenge, taking place in January 2019 when a fleet of classic yachts will set sail from Lanzarote and cross the Atlantic Ocean, finishing in St Kitts in the Caribbean Sea. The route itself will be immortalised on the caseback of each Luminor Regatta Transat Classique in the form of an engraving showing a sailing craft superimposed on a map of the Atlantic, above the dotted path between the start and finish points.

Taking part in the race will be Panerai’s own lovingly restored 1936 Bermudan ketch, Eilean, tackling her 38th transatlantic crossing. Enhancing its appeal to members of the yachting fraternity, the Luminor Regatta Transat Classique features a reverse countdown mechanism for indicating the moments preceding the start of a race. The watch’s overall cast is blue, for both the dial and the rubber strap, accenting the 47mm solid brushed-titanium case with polished bezel. Enhancing legibility against the navy blue background are white Arabic numerals and indices, hour hand, minute hand and small seconds, orange for the 12-hour counter, orange for the yacht timing hand and blue for the chronograph sweep seconds.

Its race countdown function enables the tracking of the minutes and seconds preceding the start of a race to be measured. The pusher at 4 o’clock stops the orange hand at the desired moment in relation to the length of the countdown; the regular chronograph pushers are situated at 8 and 10 o’clock. Explains Panerai: “When the chronograph is started, the relative hands begin to move, indicating first the minutes and seconds remaining until the start and, once the countdown is completed, the time elapsed since the start of the race.”

Added to this specific function are the classic Panerai flip-lock device protecting the winding crown, which helps to ensure the watch’s water resistance (a depth of about 100m), the flyback chronograph with two counters, for measuring two partial times in quick succession and a tachymeter scale in knots for calculating the speed of the boat. The automatic manufacture Calibre P.9100/R has a generous power reserve of three days, perfect for accommodating an entire weekend at sea.