At the age of 16, EDOUARD HEUER began his apprenticeship with a local watchmaker in the Swiss Alpine village of Saint-Imier, where he spent part of his childhood. Four years later, in 1860, TAG Heuer opened a small workshop on his parents’ farm, where he made silver pocket watches. Within ten years, he received his first patent—the crown-operated winding system—and filed for another in 1887, improving the design of the oscillating pinion to enable his chronograph to be more efficient start and stop. Renowned for its accuracy and technical precision, the brand was popular with athletes and pilots and became the official timekeeper of three Olympic Games in the 1920s.
In 1958, Jack Heuer, Edward’s great-grandson, joined the family business. A skier and racing enthusiast, he oversaw the creation of the now iconic 1963 Carrera, named after the Trans-Mexico Carrera Panamericana race. In the 1967 America’s Cup, TAG Heuer equipped the champion Intrepid sailing team with sailing watches and stopwatches; the following year, to commemorate the victory, Jack launched a new chronograph called Skipper, Its hands and case are the same as the Carrera. The dark blue metal dial is flanked by dual counters, with a mint green minute register on the left and a 15-minute regatta countdown timer on the right, divided into three segments in green, orange and cyan. (The teal color was chosen to exactly match the color of the Intrepid anti-reflective deck, making it easy to see through the waves.)
Fifty-five years later, TAG Heuer is relaunching the collector’s edition Skipper watch that has long since disappeared from the brand’s catalogue. Now, the iconic Carrera blue brushed dial features pointed pennant-shaped hour and minute hands, a bright orange seconds hand, rhodium-plated hour markers, a date display at 6 o’clock, and a navy blue fabric strap. Whether by land or sea, it remains as timeless as ever.
Camera Assistant: Christopher Thomas Lynn
