Watches & Wonders Edit: Tudor launches two new Black Bay models – Pro and GMT S&G, featuring MT5652 manufacture calibre and trademark snowflake hands coated with Super-LumiNova

Apr 19 , 2022

The new Tudor Black Bay Pro. Photos: Tudor

Tudor’s Black Bay is inspired by a tradition dating back to the 1950s when brand founder Hans Wilsdorf supplied watches to the British North Greenland Expedition

Black Bay watches are among the most coveted timepieces – the Pro has a redesigned 39mm case while the S&G features a 41mm case crafted in stainless steel and yellow gold

Since it was introduced in 2012, Tudor’s Black Bay has become not just one of the watchmaker’s most successful models, but also one of the most coveted timepieces on the market. A diver’s watch with an elegant retro aesthetic, it combines the best of classic styling with the very latest in watchmaking innovation. Inspired by the appearance of the dials of Tudor diving watches from as long ago as the 1950s, including the unmistakable “snowflake” hands, it is distinctly modern in its accuracy, its robustness and the sophistication of its movement, powering all sorts of sought-after horological complications.

The Tudor Black Bay Pro is a new version of the Black Bay, which has become one of the most coveted timepieces on the market.

One such complication is available on the dial of the new Black Bay Pro, introduced at this year’s Watches and Wonders – a piece that also represents a daring aesthetic overhaul of this much loved line. Tudor has long been the watchmaker of choice for the most adventurous among us, valued for its timepieces’ accuracy, robustness and reliability. That tradition dates back to when brand founder Hans Wilsdorf personally supplied watches to the 30 members of the British North Greenland Expedition in the early 1950s, and the rugged Black Bay Pro takes its inspiration from those pioneering explorers and the timepieces they wore.

The rugged Black Bay Pro features a 24-hour graduated satin-brushed fixed bezel, which immediately catches the eye.

Its most immediately striking feature is the 24-hour graduated satin-brushed fixed bezel. But the watch is as smart as it is beautiful, with the MT5652 manufacture calibre featuring built-in GMT function at its heart. A yellow 24-hour snowflake hand, with Super-LumiNova applied to it, shows the reference time, with a shorter snowflake hand indicating the local time. The applied hour markers on the dial are made from monobloc luminous ceramic for the first time. The watch comes in a 39mm case, with a redesigned crown set flush to the middle case band for maximum grip.

The Tudor Black Bay GMT S&G – the latter letters stand for “steel and gold”, hence the case that combines stainless steel and yellow gold.

Also unveiled at Watches & Wonders this year was another coveted model from the collection with the same complication, the Black Bay GMT, given a warm, romantic new appearance in the form of the Black Bay GMT S&G. Those letters stand for “steel and gold”, and the timepieces come wrapped in a satin-brushed, polished 41mm case crafted in a winning combination of 316L stainless steel and yellow gold. This version of the Black Bay comes adorned with the bidirectional rotating bezel typical of diver’s watches, in black and brown anodised aluminium, with the two colours representing day and night, offset by yellow gold. Again it is powered by the MT5652 manufacture calibre, which here offers three time zones from its GMT complication, and again it deploys the trademark snowflake hands coated with Super-LumiNova to indicate the different time zones.

The Tudor Black Bay GMT S&G’s date function and local time hand work together in harmony.

Both the Black Bay Pro and the Black Bay GMT S&G come with a particularly ingenious feature in which the date function and local time hand work together in harmony, with the date instantly jumping back a day when the time hand is wound backwards beyond midnight. Both are also offered in a choice of a steel bracelet, a leather strap or the brand’s signature jacquard woven strap.

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