New Tudor Pelagos FXD makes a splash at Alinghi Red Bull Racing’s Barcelona base

[BARCELONA] In case anybody was wondering why a Pelagos was missing when Tudor unveiled its Watches & Wonders novelties in Geneva earlier this year, they’d find their answer in Barcelona last Thursday (Jun 29), where not one, but two new Pelagos FXD models received a shock drop outside of the annual Swiss luxury watch fair.

Both watches celebrate the partnership Tudor entered into with two-time America’s Cup winner Alinghi Red Bull Racing in 2022, and the drop took place in the Catalan capital because that is where the latter has set up base as they prepare for another title challenge next summer.

Hence, it should come as no surprise that the overall design of the Pelagos FXD Alinghi Red Bull Racing Edition watches takes inspiration from the AC75 yacht used in the race.

The team colours – blue and red – are used on the dials and fabric straps, while some of the high-tech materials found on the boat are used to make other parts of the watch.

Tudor watch designer Ludovic Bazzan shares that this is done to showcase the spirit of the collaboration.

“We wanted to fuse the daringness of the human spirit with cutting-edge technology, which is something that you find in competitive yacht-racing as well as what we do at Tudor,” he says.

Hence, the brand is introducing carbon to its watchmaking for the first time, and the FXD’s black-matte-finished carbon composite cases and bezel insert are a nod to the carbon fibre hull and mast from the AC75.

“We really wanted to introduce something new and find a new approach to working with watches,” says Bazzan.

Titanium – found on the boat’s hydrofoil and hull fittings and used for the case of the original FXD watch from 2021 – also features on the new watches’ bi-directional rotatable bezel.

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But more than that, Bazzan states that the watches have to be “light yet tough and reliable” when the Alinghi Red Bull Racing team wears them during the America’s Cup race next June.

He shares: “Whether you are practising or competing, you cannot afford to be too careful about wearing a watch, so it has to be durable and resistant, and using carbon fibre, for example, makes it scratch-resistant and light.”

Given that the watch is quite colourful, it is nice to find that Tudor hasn’t gone overboard with trying to add too many other unnecessary details to the new Pelagos FXDs.

For example, instead of plastering the Alinghi Red Bull Racing logo on the front of the dial, they have instead placed it on the caseback and the branding is subtly found on the rehaut instead.

This touch works especially well on the chronograph version as it avoids over-cluttering the dial, and allows the red Pelagos wording, big seconds and outline of the chrono subdials to pop.

To accommodate the Manufacture Calibre MT 5813, the chronograph is slightly larger (43 mm) than the time-only version (42 mm), which is the same size as the previous Pelagos FXD and also uses the Manufacture Calibre MT 5602.

Both in-house movements are COSC-certified and weekend-proof, so you can take them off on a Friday and it will still be ticking on Monday when you put them on again.

Incidentally, this is also the first-ever chronograph in the Pelagos collection and the Calibre MT 5813 is derived from the Manufacture Calibre Breitling 01 chronograph, with a high-precision regulating organ developed by Tudor and exclusive finishes.

Bazzan shares that over the last 11 years since the Pelagos first launched, the collection has been a canvas for Tudor to experiment and innovate, while also positioning it differently from the Black Bay diving watches by being its more “technical” cousin. 

Indeed, the first-generation models were water-proofed to a whopping 500 m, and there was even a destro version for left-handers.

Even the FXD models themselves stand out from the other Pelagos watches by being a bit more hardcore with its fixed (hence its FXD moniker) strap bars design instead of standard lugs. 

“Pelagos for us is where we can play around with things a bit more. but even when we are having fun at work, we always try to keep things as authentic as we can,” Bazzan quips.

The Tudor Pelagos FXD “Alinghi Red Bull Racing Edition” is out now, and retails for S$5,130 and S$7,080 for the time-only and chronograph models, respectively.