As I’m asked this time and again – what are yachting watches for? Is there a difference between them and regatta watches?

Yachting watches – or regatta watches, as there’s no difference – are essential for sailors to ensure they get off to the best possible start in a regatta.

There are a wide variety of regatta rules, which have changed over the years and can even vary from club to club. But in principle, this is how it works:

There is an imaginary line on the water, usually marked by two buoys or one buoy and the starter boat. This line must not be crossed before the official start. Anyone who does so accidentally will incur a time penalty.

An initial acoustic signal is given, meaning ‘Attention, the start is in X minutes’. You press the pusher and start the regatta countdown on your regatta timer or yachting watch.

From this point on, things get exciting in front of the starting line.

All boats now tack back and forth behind the line, observing the rules of right of way. The aim is to be as close as possible to the starting line after the X minutes and to cross it with the best wind.
That is why it is important to keep an eye on the X minutes at all times. Usually, this is 5 or 10 minutes. The closer the start time gets, the more everyone tries to find the optimal position.

Then the actual start signal is given. This clears the start line and everyone sets off into the race.

Yacht and regatta timers, as well as yachting and regatta watches, now offer various ways of displaying the countdown to the line crossing.

You can find out more about that different display options here.

This site is the ultimate reference website and knowledge collection of the HEUER Yachting and Regatta watches as Heuer Skipper, Heuer Regatta, Heuer Mareographe or even Abercrombie & Fitch Seafarer (Mareographe name for the US market).

And yes – what is a Heuer Skipper? It is the yachting wrist chronograph made by Heuer from the late 1960s to the early 1980s in various configurations. With the blue and black dial and the colorful regatta-dial and orange hands it is one of the most cool and beautiful watches they ever made.

The special function on this watche is the regatta-timer, a subdial which shows the countdown of 15 minutes the sailors have before they cross the starting line of a regatta.

End of the 60´s through to the early 80´s the Heuer Skipper was produced in different cases and colors.

The Skipperfamily – Nic Greens collection some time ago
credit: Nic Green | chronomatic.com

But first some steps in history.

After labeling the Aquastar Regate 4000N with the Heuershield in the middle of the 1960s the real first regatta timer as a wristwatch produced by HEUER was given the name Heuer Skipper. It was housed in the 1960’s Carrera case reference 7753. The Heuer Skipper reference was then 7754.

All further executions were housed in the Autavia cases and included the case reference 7763 Compressor case (Skipper 7764), 73463 (Skipper 73464), 1163V/1564 (Skipper 1564), 15640/11630 (Skipper 15640 blue and later black dial) and 11063 (Skipper 15640 black late). It is worth knowing that the Skipper reference codes were uniqe and did not correspond to the case reference number eg the first automatic Skipper reference 1564 was housed in a 1163V engraved case.

I have complied a list of details of the different models of the Skipper available here.

Read more about the story of the Heuer Skipper here.

The history of building watches for sailing sportsmen goes back to the 1940s when HEUER launched watches for reording the time of regattas and showing tide indication (used by fisherman and sailing on the open sea).

These inluded:

HEUER Solunar
From the 40s HEUER produced the Solunar with tide indication that show high and low tide.

Heuer Solunar
credit: TAGHeuer.com

HEUER Mareographe / Abercrombie & Fitch Seafarer
In the 1950’s HEUER launched the Mareograph and labeled the same watch for Abercrombie & Fitch known as the Seafarer for the US market.

Find here all about the different executions of these amazing looking watches.

The production of these models continued through to the late 1960’s/early 1970’s.

Abercrombie & Fitch Seafarer (trading brand of Heuer in US)
early execution in modified 2446SF Autavia compressor case

From the early 60s till the 80s Heuer built a lot of handheld and wrist stopwatches without showing time of day.

Read all about the Heuer Yachttimers here...

Different Yachting Timer made by Heuer

End of the 60s Heuer produced a beautiful Carrera with a “Yachting” Subdial. Just a very few are known and it seems, they were made as a custom order only.

You find all about the Heuer Carrera Yachting and Heuer Autavia Yachting “specials” here.

Heuer Carrera Yachting
credit: Paul from heuerworld.com

Another line with a 5-dot countdown timer, started in 1965 with distribution of the Auqastar Regate, then co-branded with the HEUER logo.

In 1974 came the first own built HEUER Regatta with the Lemania 1345 movement and they were built to the 1980s.

Read all about the Heuer Regatta here…

Catalogue Heuer Regatta
credit: onthedash.com

This is just a small overview about all the Heuer Yachting and Regatta Watches. You will find all information when you dig deeper in this website.

But it´s not just about the Heuer Yachting family, you will find a lot about all different Yachting Watches from the 1960s to the 1970s here.