Christmas Break

Hi All,

My partner and I have just returned from a few days away over Christmas - we decided to get away from the family and usual celebrations and do something for our selves so booked a trip to sunny Port Douglas to get some well earned relaxation.

We checked into a wonderful hotel where we spent most of the time near the pool (it was 32+ degrees c every day) -

I had packed a couple of watches with me, one of which was this -

And we spent a lot of time out at the Great Barrier Reef looking at this -

I had the camera on taking a shot every 3 seconds which ended up in literally thousands of photos, I wont post them all here, but if you want a look, you can see the album here - plus.google.com/photos/104512717789434290514/albums/5691385357245847121?authkey=CP6r4ebLzvX4-gE

It was great to have the Aquatimer in its natural habitat, even if it didn't get down any where near 2000 m!

We managed to get out to a sensational restaurant in a rain forest setting which had a great setting, sensational food, service and wine, unfortunately I only got a photo of the wine -

Whilst we had a sensational 5 days which was very relaxing, the holiday didn't start off very good. Within 10 minutes of checking in, I decided to freshen up and whilst in the bathroom, took my Pilot Double Chrono off, washed my face, grabbed a towel and knocked the watch off the bench top, with this being the result:

Needless to say, it was a horrible way to start the holiday, but I managed to put it behind me and had a great stay regardless. I have dropped the watch off already to get it sent back and will hopefully have an idea of what is happening with it in a few weeks.

Cheers,

Ben

Ben... Christmas Break... what a pun.

Sorry to hear that. What was the bathroom tiles made of, by the way?

Great photos, thanks for sharing. I have to get a dive camera to catch my ATs in action! You must have a pretty good flash, you've captured some wonderful colors of the coral!

Hi Tony / Ben / Kelvin,

Definitely not about the landing! It landed on terracotta tiles and whilst I did not see it falling, as soon as I heard the sound I did not need to look down to see what had just hit.

I used a Contour GPS camera in one of their waterproof housings, it does both 1080p HD video and 5MP images - I also have an hour or so of HD footage from earlier in the day but have not uploaded it anywhere yet. There was no flash, assisted lighting or otherwise, just the sun, the water and the coral - these shots are all fairly close up to the coral and in shallow water, there were a lot of shots where I was a bit further away or in deeper water and the shots are not as good.

I dropped the watch back with Richemont today, but due to the holiday period, it will be at least a week before they send it back to Schaffhausen, so will be a bit of a wait at present, just means I wear the other watches a bit more ...

Ouch, good that you hade more then one IWC with you on the trip. Sorry to hear!
Great pics!

Ben - what a Christmas "break" indeed - sorry to see those last pictures, but I am still impressed with the way you seem to take it on the chin!!!

As much as we all love our watches, when it really comes down to it they are only things - and as most things they can be fixed (even if it takes a little time and money). I'm sure it will soon be back on your wrist - as good as new!

Hello Ben,

Your photos of coral and wrist scan are great, thanks for sharing.

Hope you have the Top Gun back very soon. Will your watch be assigned another case number?

Ben, your pictures are great. It is always interesting to see AT at work, I'm still reluctant to take mine in the shower.
very sorry about your Top Gun, please post pictures upon it's return.
Happy New Year.
Cheers,
Kevin

Hi Ben,

Looks like a wonderful time and great photos!

It's interesting to see how the lug broke off, cleanly in two pieces and not shattered.

Good luck!

Hi Ben,
Great pictures, except the last ones of the Pilot double chrono. I can imagine, how it can spoil the rest of your holiday. At least you had a great fun with your Aquatimer. That, s alway my big concern, when I am traveling. Just recently bougt IWC UTC Pilot, limited edition and I am considering to take them to my holiday to Dubai and Maledives.
Good luck with the service
Krata

That shattered ceramic case almost makes me want to cry, but the rest of the vacation looks wonderful! Thanks for posting the photos and happy new year!
Jeff

Hi Skule (and others)

There is a pretty well known comedy / parody sketch known by Aussies who remember the 1980's sending up a gymnasts who takes his run up and runs into the end of the vaulting horse - I think the real gymnast that the sketch was based on was Brian Meeker but the sketch is between the fictional Rick Dysneck and a larger than life Australian commentator "Big" Darryl Eastlake, it goes something like :

Short time after running into end of vaulting horse
.....
Rick: (insert random wheezes, painful gasps for air, general pain sounds) "I punctured my lungs, crushed my larynx, ruptured my spleen, broke all my ribs"

Darryl: "So Rick, did you have a sand shoe blow out, or did you just stuff up?"

Rick: wheeze, painful inhalation "No Darryl, <wheeze> I just stuffed up!"

In the famous words or Rick Dysnack, my watch didn't drag itself over to the edge of the bench and jump to its death, the floor didn't jump up and hit it - I just stuffed up!
I broke my back a few years ago and did most of the damage that Rick described in the first sentence above as the result of a mountain bike accident (footage here :) ), had to learn to walk again, still have a few side effects and have a great appreciation for the fact that at the end of the day, in this case it is just a watch that is broken, much worse things can and do happen!

Cheers,

Ben

Assuming it's you on the video: yeah, it's just a watch. The most courageous things I did also had to do with mountains, like hiking, skiing, there are a moment or two I think I was lucky. I don't care for those risks anymore, and I still have fun. I consciously baby my watches most of the time. Good luck!

Kind regards,
Paul

Ouch that hurts and you have my sincere condolences! On a happier note...your underwater shots with the AT in its natural habitat were spectacular! Thanks for sharing them with us, and good luck on a quick and complete repair.

Ben - that looked bone breaking. With that said I know how fun that is, being both a road and mountain biker myself. I have never raced downhill though - and maybe I shouldn't either as I am currently nursing a very sore shoulder from hitting the ice hard doing 35 km/h a couple of weeks ago ;-)

Sorry Ben about the ceramic break. It's not the first example of this happening. I wish you for your watch a speedy recovery - re ceramic casing etc. hooe all will be back to highest standards again soon.

Happy end to the holidays.

I just checked... on my Top Gun, the serial number is on the titanium case-back, not the ceramic... so I suppose Ben can keep his own serial number... (but I suppose that is his least concern right now).

Hi All,

It seems to be the week of the Top Gun on all fronts for IWC, including the service department. I received the quote yesterday for the repair to my watch, as expected they will be replacing the main case and pusher as well as correcting the gear train and performing a service and as an optional extra replacing the crystal.

The cost for it all is on the high end of what I expected, which caused a little bit of greif yesterday when I received it, but after a night of mulling it over (it was a fairly large pill to swallow) I have just sent off the approval to have all the work including the crystal done. I should have the watch back in 6 - 7 weeks which I am looking forward to (my new Aquatimer is getting a lot of / too much wrist time at present and with the 5001 getting worn every now and then and the MKXI kept in safe places so I dont damage it). I have however ordered a new strap for the AT which will let me mix it up a bit.

As it stands, I will be delaying any further purchases - simply because this exercise will clean out a fair chunk of funds I had allocated towards my next purchase - maybe if I work a little harder I can get something else in the second half of this year :) Moral of the story, dont drop your watches and take care!

Interestingly the line item is listed as "Middle Case, Engraved" I am not sure if the Engraved part refers to the Top Gun logo on the side or maybe a case number on the inside but by the sounds of it the watch will keep its original details.

Cheers,

Ben

Hi Ben
Interesting to follow your description of your accident with your ceramic watch and also about your contact with IWC afterwards. It sounds like an accident that any insurance company would cover or am I wrong here?
I am the happy owner of the 3786 and as soon as I got the watch the first thing I did was to go and buy a deployment strap! I think a deployment strap will decrease the amount of situations that could cause a drop to the floor! I have made it a habit not to ake off the watch over hard flooring, don't even think about it any longer

Regards

Mike

sorry about the top gun i almost bought one but heard a few stories of broken cases and then the price or a new case! wow they are expensive!

Hi Mike,

Unfortunately the usual insurance didn't cover this and because we were "only" travelling interstate, I didn't even think to take out travel insurance which would have likely covered a fair chunk of it. I never travel overseas without travel insurance but just dont think about it when travelling interstate - you think that as you are still in the same country and not far from home - what could go wrong!

I do have a deployment clasp on this one but unfortunately it didn't help in this scenario - I had taken the watch off, left it on a bench top, freshened up and then grabbed something else off the bench top which latched onto the watch and took it with it. I had been up since 4am, flown for 3 hours, had a bus ride for an hour and a half, waited to check in for an hour and was tired and careless - a mistake I hope I will not make again.

WRXSTI - dont let my or others experience put you off buying a ceramic watch - use our experiences as a lesson, get the watch you like and be careful - something you need to do with all your watches anyhow. If I had done the same thing with my 5001 or MKXI, I would be just as annoyed, there would still be a fair amount of damage to the watch wether visible or not (Either would likely have a fair dent in the case from a similar fall) and whilst the repair bill may not be quite as high, it is still going to be considerable and you are still going to have a damaged watch and feel bad about the accident. The only watch I think I could get away with it with would be the Aquatimer 2000, with the weight of this thing, I think the tile may have come off second best in such an accident!

Cheers,

Ben

Ouch!! Sorry to hear about your ceramic nightmare. This is certainly a reminder that ceramic, while virtually scratch proof, is quite brittle. Your point about your other IWC gems is a good one. While relatively speaking they may be quite sturdy, it doesn't take much to damage any of these beautiful timepieces. At the end of the day we have to handle them with care. Best of luck!