The art of simplicity is the puzzle of complexity: this timepiece makes this adage its own. Its annual calendar offers an elegant mechanical solution, favoring technical simplicity and ease of use.
Simplicity is the hardest thing to achieve. It is the last limit of experience, the last effort of genius. With the new Marine Chronograph Annual Calendar, Ulysse Nardin has succeeded in placing haute horlogerie in this new paradigm. In the quest for perfection, its annual calendar offers a mechanical solution of disconcerting purity. Simple to handle, adjustable forwards as well as backwards, this timepiece is tinged with the brand’s values of innovation, reliability and high precision. Its UN-153 caliber is entirely manufactured in-house, including the silicon balance-spring.
Halfway between the perpetual calendar – which requires no correction until the year 2100 – and the simple calendar – which requires five manual adjustments per year – the annual calendar is mechanically programmed for one year: it recognizes the months of 30 and 31 days, but not the month of February. It therefore only needs to be corrected once a year.
But where traditional devices involve up to thirty components, Ulysse Nardin’s watchmakers succeeded in developing a system with just ten elements. An evolution of the simple calendar developed for caliber UN-118, this annual calendar required just three additional mobiles – a challenge in the purest spirit of Ludwig Oechslin, the brilliant designer who made simplicity his philosophy.
This new UN-153 caliber, entirely in-house manufactured, beats at 28,800 vibrations per hour, a guarantee of extreme precision. Its silicon balance-spring and escapement are manufactured by Sigatec, a company co-owned by Ulysse Nardin.
This particularly sophisticated movement allows the time and calendar indications to be manipulated in both directions. These are complemented by the chronograph function. In addition to the hours, minutes and central second hand, the 30-minute counter appears at 3 o’clock, the hour counter at 6 o’clock and the small seconds at 9 o’clock. The latter also houses the month display, whose sub-divisions provide clever markers for adjustment. Finally, the date is displayed in an aperture at 6 o’clock.
A worthy heir to the Marine Chronometer Manufacture (2012) and Marine Chronograph Manufacture (2013) models, the Marine Chronograph Annual Calendar takes up the eminently classic codes of marine instruments: a fluted bezel, a screw-down crown guaranteeing perfect water-resistance, a full lugset ensuring admirable stability on the wrist and a generous 43 mm-diameter case, synonymous with excellent legibility.
The embodiment of the Manufacture’s extraordinary history, equipped with the latest technological advances in chronometry, this new 2016 model conveys the ever-vital spirit of Ulysse Nardin.
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