SpotlightGeneva Watch Days 2024: The New Speake Marin Ripples Skeleton Dares To Bare It All
The new Speake Marin Ripples Skeleton is a departure from the classic Ripples range, as it strips bare almost the whole dial, uses superior quality 904L steel, ensures a 30 percent reduction in case thickness, and accommodates an ultra-slim in-house automatic calibre, measuring just 3.25mm!
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When Swiss watchmaker Speake Marin came out with their first Ripples watch in March 2023, the watch created ‘ripples’ in the stainless-steel sporty chic watch segment. It showcased a new dimension to the brand’s ideology of producing ‘belle horlogerie’, beautiful timepieces. The minimalistic dial replete with the signature wave motif reminds you of rolling shop shutters with horizontal slats, and enchants for the geometrically composed chiaroscuro (interplay of light and shadow). Prior to Ripples, the Swiss brand kept extending their Openworked line of skeletonised watches with prestige complications such as minute repeaters, dual time zones, tourbillons, retrograde calendar displays, bridges, along with partial views of the in-house movement. It’s why the new Ripples Skeleton version then, unveiled at the Geneva Watch Days 2024, can seem like an amalgamation of the two Speake Marin lines. The new iteration is a departure from the classic Ripples range, as it strips bare almost the whole dial, uses superior quality 904L steel, ensures a 30 percent reduction in case thickness, and accommodates an ultra-slim in-house automatic calibre, measuring just 3.25mm!
A Speake Marin Of Many Firsts: The Ripples Skeleton
The Ripples Skeleton is a timepiece that nails many firsts for the brand. It’s the first from the Ripple line to have an openworked dial and caseback, and it’s the first Speake Marin watch to use the superior quality 904L steel. This material choice, considered a step-up from the brand’s go-to 316L steel, contains high quotients of nickel chromium and copper, making it resistant to corrosion and acid, and producing a shinier result after polish. It’s the first iteration to opt for reduced case thickness, going from 9.20mm to 6.30mm. This has proved to be in a ‘Domino Effect’ of sorts, as the watch is also the first from the brand to produce a calibre measuring just 3.25mm thickness. Like the cherry on top are the two hands, especially the chubbier hour hand with heart-shaped tip, inspired by the Great Clock of Westminster, harking to the brand’s original English roots. For the first time, the two hands are flame-blued by hand.
A Jamboree Of Shapes: Speake Marin Ripples Skeleton
At first glance, the Speake Marin Ripples Skeleton appears to be a mixed bag of shapes. It features the octagonal, cushion shaped ‘La City’ case, a brand signature, measuring 40.30mm. It is topped by a square-shaped bezel with rounded corners, which nestles a circular dial with the small seconds sub-dial with the signature ‘Ripple’ horizontal lines in PVD treatment as background, is wedged at 1:30 (between one and two o’clock). The dial features ultra slim applied indices; 0.14mm wide indices at the four cardinal points, and 0.12mm indices for the remaining dial. A minute-flange with shiny black dots completes the timekeeping activity for the watch.
In a unique twist, the dial and the in-house skeletonised SMA07 calibre are one and the same. That means instead of chipping away at the dial to reveal the calibre underneath, the Ripples Skeleton dial and calibre are enmeshed as one. That means the ‘dial’s surface’ is the self-winding movement, reflecting the interconnectedness between its parts and their shapes, such as the semicircular integrated rotor, toothed ratchet wheel, balance wheel, network of triangular bridges, and more. The wearer, for instance, gets to view the hands ticking and see the mechanism that makes this feat possible.
Flanked by the sub-dial is the shiny black Speake Marin logo on an opaline, rhodium-plated plate. Anti-reflective sapphire crystal glass cover dial and caseback to avoid glare and ensure good visibility under all lighting conditions. The Maison’s engraved logo stands out prominently on the screw-down fluted crown.
Shout Out To The Robust In-House Movement
The 3.25mm thick SMA07 movement, invented by master horologists from the brand’s workshop situated at Le Cercle des Horlogers, beats at a high frequency of 36,000vph. This high frequency balance wheel, which emerged in the 1960s, ensures higher accuracy in movement, and allows the seconds hand to move at smooth pace. The self-winding skeleton movement ensures improved chronometric performance with the time accuracy about -/+ 5 seconds per day. Comprising 182 parts, the SMA07 features an integrated micro-rotor and offers 52-hour power reserve. To establish some control over the bi-directional rotor or winding system, this calibre comes with reversers, which ‘reverses one of the motions to act in the direction required for winding the spring that supplies the energy’. The movement still looks cohesive despite the diverse finishes on the different parts of the calibre. Like the vertical satin finish on the rhodium-plated skeletonised main plate, the laser-engraved micro-rotor, the circling-finished wheels, the vertical satin-brushed bridges with chamfered profiles and polished angles, and more.
The Ripples Skeleton comes attached to an integrated triple-link steel bracelet with polished and satin finish, and its folding clasp allows for adjustments according to wrist size of upto 4mm via a 2mm button.
Taking off parts of the dial renders the watch lightweight and, but also offers a peekaboo of the wearer’s skin where the watch is strapped onto the wrist. To experience the true beauty of the Ripples Skeleton, hold it up to see the light filter through looming gaps and cervices, and watch the term ‘organised chaos’ physicalise.
