SimplyAbuDhabi X

1 1 1 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I W hen Georges Favre-Jacot started his watchmaking company in 1865, he was already convinced that emotion arises from a combination of daring and authenticity. Later, to suggest that his brand offered the ultimate in expertise and high standards, he renamed the company after the highest point in the sky: Zenith. The Zenith brand earned swift recognition for the precision of its chronometers, for which it has won 2,333 chronometry prizes in a century and a half of existence: an absolute record in terms of pocket watches, onboard timers and wristwatches. Having earned fame thanks to its legendary El Primero calibre – an integrated automatic column-wheel chronograph movement launched in 1969 and endowed with a high frequency of 36,000 vibrations per hour that ensures measurements accurate to the nearest 1/10th of a second – Zenith has since developed over 600 movement variations. With the El Primero Stratos Flyback Striking 10th timepiece, Zenith once againmade history. As a noted partner of the greatest human adventures, Zenith equipped Felix Baumgartner with a watch worthy of his feat: the world’s most precise series-made chronograph equipped with a Striking 10th function and its three coloured counters enabling tenth of a second reading. Complete with its flyback function, this top-flight instrument proves particularly useful for pilots, since it enables them to stop, reset and restart the chronograph in one smooth move. Ever since its birth in 1865, the brand has remained true to its mantra of precision and reliability. These are imperious necessities for such a perilous mission as Felix Baumgartner’s jump. While the supersonic achievement is recent, performance has been a constant feature of the almost century and a half-long history of the brand with the guiding star and which notably produced timing and navigation instruments for civil and military aviation right from the dawn of the 20th century. Consistently in sync with the latest challenges, Zenith timepieces have always boasted tried and tested robustness. An El Primero model thus crossed the Atlantic in 1970, fixed to the landing gear of a Boeing 707 during the AF015 flight from Paris to New York. Despite being subjected to terrible variations in temperature and pressure, as well as constant jolting, the watch maintained its cadence of 36,000 vibrations per hour as well as remaining precise to the nearest second. It in fact required no correction upon arrival apart from the inevitable time-zone adjustment. The Stratos worn by modern-day hero Felix Baumgartner has experienced a similar destiny, accompanying him in his jump secured to his right arm over his spacesuit and in direct contact with the exterior. Despite the massive accelerations, temperature differences and variations in atmospheric pressure encountered during the 9 minutes and 18 seconds of the jump, the El Primero chronograph was running as smoothly as ever upon its return to terra firma. Far more than just a confrontation with the most extreme conditions. For Zenith, the adventure on Felix Baumgartner’s wrist means far more than just confronting its mechanism with the most extreme conditions, because the Red Bull mission and theManufacture follow the same star: the one guiding the daring approach of all those with an enterprising spirit, consistently pushing the boundaries of technical precision and opening up a place of freedom where anything becomes possible.