Girard-Perregaux ww.tc John Harrison

John Harrison was a self-educated English watchmaker. History remembers him as the inventor of marine chronometer, a device used to determine longitude by means of celestial navigation. John Harrison was first to solve the problem of establishing East-West position of a ship at sea, which became essential for safe long distance sea travel in the age dominated by sailing ships. After the great incident in 1707, when an error in estimating the longitude of a squadron warship resulted in wreckage and death of 2,000 men, the British Parliament offered a prize of £20,000 to anyone who was ingenious enough to solve this problem. Expressed in modern currency, the prize was equal to £2.87 million! In 1773, John Harrison was the first to earn the prize. However, the promised amount was never awarded in full, but new watch by Girard-Perregaux could possibly redeem this centuries long injustice.



The dial of a watch depicts the journey Portsmouth, England, to Port Royal, Jamaica, against a map of the Atlantic Ocean. This is the exact route travelled by John Harrison’s son William, undertaken to test the reliability of the H-4 watch. The dial is made in delicate champlevé enamel technique: contours of the map are engraved on a plate of white gold and later filled with a layer of green and blue enamel. Everything is done by hand and then baked in a furnace at 800°C, cooled and manually polished. The route is indicated by a trace of silvered powder, stretching across the watch-face, from Europe to America.



The dial is embraced by the cities ring, which is activated by the white-gold crown. On the dial, cities of dial, Portsmouth and Port Royal are highlighted in nice shade of royal blue. The blue/white hours ring and the rhodium-plated leaf-shaped minutes hand indicate universal time. Local time is shown in a traditional manner, by centered skeletonized hands.



The watch is crafted in white gold, boasting 42mm in diameter. Case-back is fitted with sapphire crystal, secured with six screws. It reveals beating of the inner movement Girard-Perregaux GP033G0. This mechanical movement with automatic winding allows for at least 46 hours of power reserve. The watch is water resistant to 50 meters, completed with black alligator strap, and offered in a limited series of 50 individually numbered pieces. As an ultimate tribute to this extraordinary man, the pink gold oscillating weight is engraved with a parchment bearing the dates on which the H-4 started and finished its Atlantic crossing.