The new Omega Spirate System is the latest technical milestone from the watch manufacture. It is a new type of regulating organ with a silicon balance spring that can be very finely adjusted, enabling it to achieve a superlative precision of 0/+2 seconds per day. More impressively, it is a component that can be produced on an industrial scale, which means that going forward Omega’s movements may be the most precise mass-produced movements in the world. By comparison, Omega’s current calibres can be tuned to up to 0/+5 seconds per day.
The Spirate System debuts in the Omega Speedmaster Super Racing (RM48,450), a striking two-register chronograph with a black-and-yellow theme and honeycomb dial pattern. It is a muscular sports watch with a steel case just over 44mm in diameter and just shy of 15mm thick. The arrow-shaped hour indices are filled with yellow lume, and the 12-hour counter at 3 o’clock also doubles as a second time zone indicator. The watch comes with a steel bracelet, as well as a black-and-yellow striped NATO strap.
It holds calibre 9920, which is self-winding and has a 60-hour power reserve. Aside from the Spirate System, and the 0/+2 seconds-per-day precision it affords, it has the usual suite of Omega’s major technical developments from two-plus decades. It has the Co-Axial Escapement, an invention of the legendary George Daniels and first found in an Omega watch in 1999, which grants the movement greater performance and reliability. It is highly resistant to magnetism, up to 15,000 gauss, which has been a hallmark of Omega watches since 2013. And it is subjected to the punishing eight-test, 10-day certification devised by the Swiss Institute of Meteorology (METAS) that Omega has been undertaking since 2015. The Spirate System is hence the latest in a long line of the manufacture’s technical achievements, and we can expect to see it over many collections to come.
