BASELWORLD 2019: Tudor Black Bay P01

Tudor‘s new model shows off a part of the brand’s history, that has only been firmly known until now. The Black Bay P01 (Ref. 70150), which was introduced for the first time on the watch fair Baselworld 2019, is inspired by a prototype from the late 1960’s and has been proposed the US Navy.

The Swiss watch manufacture already provided the US-American marine with professional diving watches in the 1950’s. In 1967 the brand developed a technical model to replace the Oyster Prince Submariner 7928 reference, which was standard-issue at that time. Therefore they had to meet a set of specifications decreed by the American government: Tudor incorporated latest results of the research into functionality and ergonomics, developed a prototype and patented a function unknown till then. Unfortunately this project with the codename ‘Commando’ was never realized. Instead the US Navy chose another standard model – the Reference 7016, which replaced Reference 7928 in the Tudor catalogue.

Tudor Black Bay P01 Ref. 70150

But now the brand presents a model, which is inspired by one of the prototypes developed for this study and kept in Tudor’s archives for decades: the Black Bay P01– which stands for prototype 1. This way 50 years later the model is brought back to life and mass-produced for the first time.

The prototype spirit

The Black Bay P01 is contemporary sporty, but at the same time the model adopts the principle of the winding crown at 4 o’clock and the prominent end-links of the 1960s model. This way the Black Bay P01 reflects the exploratory nature of the project, a cross between a divers’ watch and a navigator’s watch. The hinged end-link system on the period prototype was the subject of a patent in 1968, which covered a locking and disassembling system for the bezel to aid maintenance of the watch. The Black Bay P01 model does not literally reproduce this mechanism but borrows liberally from it, providing a stop system for the bidirectional rotating bezel via a mobile end-link at 12 o’clock.The new model features hours, minutes, seconds and date functions and is is fitted with a domed matt-black dial with painted luminescent hour markers. The matt stain-brushed case is as well based on the design of the prototype. The Black Bay P01 is water resistant to a depth of 200 meters.

Tudor Black Bay P01 Ref. 70150

The manufacture calibre MT5612

The Black Bay P01 is driven by the manufacture calibre MT5612, which has been officially certified as a chronometer by the Swiss institute Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC). Its openwork rotor is satin-brushed with sand-blasted details, and its bridges and plate have alternating polished sand-blasted surfaces and laser decorations. Special focus was laid on robustness and longevity to create a reliable and long living companion for the owner of the watch. In developing the variable inertia balance these characteristics played a central role as well: It is maintained by a sturdy traversing bridge fixed in two-points. Other than that the Black Bay P01 has a non-magnetic silicon balance spring and guarantees a power reserve of approximately 70 hours.

Tudor Black Bay P01 Ref. 70150

A hybrid leather and rubber strap

The strap especially developed for the Black Bay P01 model is a rubber base with “snowflake” motif on the back, finished with a brown leather trim. In the spirit of the period prototype, mobile satin-brushed steel attachments connect the strap to the watch case.

Tudor Black Bay P01 Ref. 70150

The essence of ‘Black Bay’

Like other models in the ‘Black Bay line’, the Black Bay P01 model features a dial inspired by the Tudor divers’ watches produced in the 1950’s. It also adopts the characteristic angular hands known to collectors as “snowflake” that appeared in the brand’s 1969 catalogue. Finally, the unprotected winding crown, like the holes drilled across the horns, are typical features of the first generations of the brand’s divers’ watches.

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