The History of the Rolex Yacht-Master | Bob's Watches

Hey Everyone and welcome back to the Bob's Watches video series. Now, we know it’s a pretty rare occurrence for Rolex to issue a new model, so when the Yacht-Master hit the market in 1992 it came as a pretty big surprise. After all, it had been since 1964 and the release of the Daytona that we hadn’t seen a new release from Rolex. The Yacht-Master was intended to be a luxury watch geared towards being a statement piece rather than a purpose-built tool watch. The most stand-out feature of this particular model is its slick three-dimensional bezel design with raised numerals and indices featuring a mirror-polished finish, and the lower background having a more muted microblasted finish to it. First launching in gold as the reference 16628, the new Rolex model used the same triplock screw-down crown mechanism as the Submariner, however, it was only rated as water-resistant to 100M. That said, if you have any wild machinations of taking a solid gold wristwatch over a hundred meters below the surface, you’ve got bigger problems than the dive rating of your watch. From the onset these models were fitted with the caliber 3135 self-winding movement In 1994 Rolex decided to mix things up a bit, rolling out more compact sizes of the Yacht-Master in a midsized 35mm and a 29mm ladies’, sticking with gold as the case metal of choice. Given their case sizes, it was the Rolex calibers 2135 providing power in these models. A relatively uneventful addition to the collection in the grand sch