Thanks OP for the review.
My initial response was surprise to see a sailing watch but almost immediately thought, yeah, of course. Going from fast cars to fast spaceships was more of a strech than incorporating fast sailboats. The racing theme makes sense to me and it opens the door (potentially) to many more interesting designs. Thumbs up.
It's an interesting design certainly. Looking at the watch, it didn't say sailing to me. This watch does have a strong connection to the Apollo 8 dark side, if that was their stated goal. The Apollo 8 was of course brilliant. But I don't understand why they chose to continue the dark side theme with sailing. What I question is the use of a skeleton style dial and dark black case. This has the unfortunate thought of a sunken boat, dark and shattered. A little disturbing for a nautical theme.
When comparing it to the ship from the Omega site, they did a better job than I initially expected by relating it to the actual boat. Still, i think Omega missed an opportunity for a mixture of white, red and dark. Sailing also has interesting sail shapes, use of chevrons and color. Not to mention the dual hulls. There are many design elements they seem to have ignored. Think of what they could have done with the bezel. Perhaps even mixing white in the case.
Last thing is the functionality. I am not a competitive sailor nor familiar with their needs in a watch. From my lack of experience it seems that this watch would be difficult to use on a racing boat with a lot of distractions. The red spinning dial? Cool if you are on land. Even the rest of the dark dial seems like it might be tough to use at a glance.
This watch was probably not intended for me. I get that. As a watch, it's really attractive and has many interesting features. As a sailing watch, not so sure. But again, maybe it wasn't designed for me.
I hesitated sharing this because I don't want to be boorish. There is much to like and I am excited about the possibilities of extending the racing theme with the speedmaster. I don't quite understand this design. Perhaps it will in time.
