When high design, sport, and luxury combine you are awarded with the specialized and complex series of watches from the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore line. Named in honor of the British Royal Navy’s line of ships with the same name, you know the attention to quality and detail is intended to be elite.

  26290IO.OO.A001VE.01 Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix Chronograph Mens Watch

This watch is a limited series offering only 1,750. It is lightweight, 44mm x 56mm x 15.7 mm in size. It is self winding chronograph allowing you to view elapsed time in addition to showing conventional time. This iconic watch is rich in design. The forged carbon case and forged carbon and black ceramic bezel along with the blackend titanium crown offer a truly sophisticated watch but also solid enough to take the shocks and knocks of an active life.

A truly strong and sophisticated watch that adheres to quality and function. The Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix Chronograph mens watch is craftsmanship at its finest.

Front interior

By Debbie O’Brien

Audemars Piguet Headquarters in Switzerland

My Journey to the Audemar Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph 26300ST.OO.1110ST.06:

In my search for a new watch for my husband, I checked out the Audemars Piguet website.  So many choices!   But, before making such a significant purchase, I needed answers to questions. Questions like: who are these people, what choices are available,  how long have they been in business, what is their reputation, who even likes their product? As I studied their website, and the stainless steel Royal Oak Chronograph in particular, I knew my search was over.

When they opened their company in 1875, Jules Louis Audemars’ and Edward Auguste Piguet’s passion for creating and crafting fine time pieces was the cornerstone of their every endeavor. It is no different today. Each and every watch bearing the Audemars Piguet pedigree is built as if it will be the only watch to represent the company.

The ambassador program for Audemars Piguet mirrors this company’s never-ending quest for quality, competitive spirit, and hallmark recognition in their respective fields. Ambassadors are chosen from the art , sports, technology, community, and business worlds.

The Audemars Piguet Prestige Sports Collection redefines the word sports while encouraging a broader sense of the characteristics that define an athlete.

Royal Oak Chronograph, Model No. 26300ST.OO.1110ST.06

To name just a few of their ambassadors:

• Svetlana Zakharova, principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow
• Lebron James, two-time NBA MVP was signed on as a global ambassador
• Lionel Messi, FIFA professional and Olympic Gold Medal soccer player
• Sachin Tendulkar, right-handed batsman for the Mumbai Indians cricket team

The case and watch band are brushed, polished stainless steel, giving the watch a modern industrial appearance. The dial (or face) is a complementing metallic color with a design reminiscent of a man-hole cover! Three sub-dials are black with matching rims and white hands which point to black numbers on a silver background for quick and easy reading. The date window is white with black numbers located just above the five o’clock position on the dial.

Here are a just few of the endearing qualities of Audemar Piguet’s Royal Oak Chronograph 26300ST.OO.1110ST.06s:

• Hour marks match the minutes and hours hands
• White sub-dial hands against a black background
• The seconds hand is a contrasting red
• The hand on the seconds sub-dial is white with a red tip
• The chronograph function has a 12 hour capacity w/30 minute counter
• The movement is automatic: No winding! No batteries!
• Water resistant to 50 meters/ about 165 feet
• Watch band has a bracelet-style push button clasp
• All this and it’s only 39mm x 49.5 mm (1.5″ x 1.9″) including bolts
• 11 millimeters thick (.4″)
• Warranty, and more!

This watch retains a hard-working,  athletic look without sacrificing the luxury and the quality that are synonymous with Audemars Piguet.  Quality comes with a price, of course, but I found several authorized dealers online selling the stainless steel Royal Oak Chronograph in prices ranging between $14,500.00 and $20,000.00.

Royal Oak Chronograph in Stainless Steel and a Black dial

Are you a man that likes robots? Do you like futuristic looking things that have nifty buttons, are shiny, and have a cool shape? How about practicality? Do you want your gizmo from the future to be productive? How about the quality and the desirability of your gadget? You want it to be top notch and be the envy of all, right? Well, consider the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Chronograph watch for men.

This timepiece looks like something Tom Cruise’s character in the movie, Minority Report would wear while being a badass and trying to survive an ultra-modernistic,  corrupt government. The Royal Oak Chronograph’s hexagonal shape secured down by 8 screws, makes it easily distinct from other watches’ designs. The case and bracelet are made of a brushed and polished Stainless Steel finish with bevel edges.  Case Diameter is 39mm by 49.5mm including lugs, and the case thickness is 11mm. A Push Button Fold-over Clasp secures the bracelet around your wrist.  The dial is Metallic Black with an engraved tapestry “waffle” design, and has a date window between the 4 and 5 o’clock position.  The crystal protecting the dial is made of Scratch Resistant Sapphire. The hour markers and hands are of applied silver toned index with a luminescent fill. The watch also contains 37 Jewels.

Other functions of the Royal Oak Chronograph include automatic movement, a 12 hour stopwatch, and self-winding Chronograph. It also has an AP Caliber of 2385 beats at 21,600 vph. The approximate power reserve is 40 hours and it has a water resistance of 50m/ 165 ft.

Pros: the watch contains 37 jewels that aren’t highly visible. This could be a good thing since many men would rather not show off the bling, but the jewels add monetary value besides fashion value to the watch.  The watch has many useful functions: hour, minutes, seconds, date, chronograph, and water resistance. It also comes with a warranty.

Cons: Metal watches usually start off cold and take awhile to warm up, so some may find the chill factor a little uncomfortable. Two buttons for the stopwatch stick out quite a bit on the right side that can get caught on things. The watch costs $15,525 and to me, the value isn’t super apparent, visibly. The watches all-steel finish doesn’t make it look like a watch that would cost up to $20,700.

So who should own this watch? Men who like to be discreet about their wealth perhaps, or men who like the hexagonal shape, all-Stainless Steel material, and chronographs that give it a polished and futuristic appearance. The variations to the Royal Oak Chronograph 2600STOO1110ST03 by Audemars Piguet you can get, are mostly based on dial color and other color details inside the watch. You can get it with a dial color difference of:  blue, white, or brown.

Royal Oak Offshore Tour Auto 2010 Chronograph

 March 1, 2010 – Audemars Piguet has released its Royal Oak Offshore Tour Auto 2010 Chronograph to  honor the status of becoming the “Official Timekeeper” of the historical car rally Tour Auto 2010 .  Sponsoring the Mecenat Chirurgie Cardiaque team in their Jaguar MK1 and the Blanchard/Cloche-Dubois ladies’ team in their AC Bristol  Audemars Piguet pays homage to this historical race and its drivers.

Appealing  to lovers of the automobile, this new series is sure to be a big hit.   The case back is engraved with the “Tour Auto” logo and the legend “Royal Oak Offshore – Serie Limitee” to remind youof this special event. 

Caliber 2326/2840 this timepiece has a power reserve of 38 hours.  The chronograph has central seconds hands, 30 minute and 12 hour sub-dials in red and silver.  The tachometric scale resides on the inner bezel.  The date is displayed at the 3 o’clock position.  42mm stainless steel case and bezel finished off with a sapphire crystal and black rubber screw lock down and pushers.  Water resistant to 100 meters in case you decide to go for a little dip to cool off.

The dial is Anthracite with a “Méga Tapisserie” design.  The numbers, hour and minute hands have a luminescent coating to light up the night.  The strap comes in racing black perforated leather with a stainless steel clasp.

Maintaining the car theme throughout its design, the Tour Auto Optic 2010 comes in gas cap shaped box in the style of a Ford GT.  This watch has racing written all over it.  Only a limited numbered series of 60 are available.