A Record Breaking Feat
The award-winning Favre-Leuba Raider Bivouac 9000 recently demonstrated that it’s not just a timepiece – but a mountaineering tool that redefines reliability. Recently, the Bivouac 9000 recently broke records becoming the only watch in the world to reach the top of the world – the summit of Mt Everest. Record-breaking mountaineer Adrian Ballinger and his team battled biting cold temperatures of -40 degrees C and lower, in the harshest of conditions, noting that “at 8,800 meters, the Raider Bivouac 9000 performed flawlessly all the way to the summit of Mt Everest.”
Coinciding with the 280th anniversary of Favre-Leuba, the Bivouac 9000 previewed during Baselword 2017 and was officially launched on the consumer market in October 2017. Within months of the launch, the watch won the prestigious 2017-18 Watchstars ‘New Star’ award for the best new watch to enter the market.
The Raider Bivouac 9000 is indeed a ‘New Star’, but it pays homage to its 1962 predecessor with the same name. The core idea of the aneroid barometer is taken forth from the original Bivouac but the engineering and functional capabilities of the Bivouac 9000 ensure the watch’s performance, innovations and precision mechanics once again redefine expectations and hold true the brand claim of conquering frontiers.
The retro-futuristic Bivouac 9000 is the ultimate timepiece tool for adventurers, especially mountaineers as it shows the altitude using an aneroid barometer. The watch’s altitude/ barometer indicates short term changes in weather based on atmospheric pressure enabling mountaineers to determine if they should proceed to the summit or take shelter. It also helps them better understand their current geo-position, vital knowledge especially during low visibility conditions when it’s hard to determine distance to a destination, as well as providing climbers with a more accurate location to broadcast in case of an emergency rescue mission. For sailing explorers, the barometer is a dynamic indication of whether to change the navigation course due to unforeseen meteorological conditions.
Even at the top of the world – the Bivouac 9000 demonstrated just how it’s redefining reliability and strength of engineering. As Ballinger testified – the watch performed flawlessly throughout the gruelling climb to the world’s highest peak, unaffected by the extreme weather conditions which would have affected the battery life of most digital watches.
Favre-Leuva’s Raider Bivouac 9000 showed that it’s a watch with a mission – to never fail even against the harshest conditions.
Inside the Bivouac 9000:
- The watch’s barometer features an airtight capsule made from a special alloy. The capsule expands when the air pressure drops as the wearer climbs, and contracts when the air pressure rises during the descent.
- The 48mm titanium case is engineered for optimized performance (altimeter/legibility), featuring a bidirectional rotating bezel to keep track of altitude based on atmospheric changes.
- Hand-wound FL311 movement, based on the EMC 3903M caliber; specially designed mechanisms for altimeter and power-reserve indicator; power reserve of 65 hours
- Hours, minutes, small seconds, central hand to display altitudes of 3,000 m per full rotation, subdial for displaying altitudes of up to 9,000 m and air pressure in hPa, power-reserve indicator, date display
About Favre-Leuba:
Favre-Leuba is the second oldest active Swiss watch brand, with a rich heritage in watch engineering and designing spanning over 281 years. Led by eight generations of the Favre family until the 1980s, Favre-Leuba was acquired by the Tata Group on November 16th, 2011. With the global scope of the Tata Group behind it, Favre-Leuba is now transitioning a legendary brand into the contemporary while continuing to cherish that which its forefathers breathed life into, the art of watch engineering. Not many can claim the power of history and own a piece of it. Today – Favre-Leuba is creating historic legends to be cherished for those that believe that being exemplary is just the start of their own legend.