A. Lange & Söhne has created the 1815 Rattrapante, a new model dedicated to one of the most sophisticated horological complications.
You never quite know what you’re going to need to time these days. It could be how long it takes for you to shake up a vodka martini; or something a little more complex, like coordinating the arrival of multiple wingmen. That’s where horological complications come in, and among them, the rattrapante is one of the most complex and appreciated.
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The movement’s complex mechanism expands the functionality of a classic chronograph by allowing the measurement of a random number of lap times within a minute. For this purpose, the new 1815 Rattrapante from A. Lange & Söhne has two superposed chronograph hands, the centre chronograph hand and the centre rattrapante hand. Both hands start together when the pusher at 2 o’clock is actuated. The centre rattrapante hand can now be stopped independently of the centre chronograph hand and then resynchronised with it. This procedure, used for instance to measure lap times, can be repeated infinitely.
The new 1815 Rattrapante comes in a noble platinum case, with the bright argenté-coloured dial and dark blued hands offering perfect legibility, an effect that’s accentuated with a peripheral railway-track minute scale and the prominent Arabic numerals.
The development of their own movement makes it possible for the watchmakers to freely choose the positions of the subsidiary dials. Instead of the ordinary positions at 3 and 9 o’clock, the 30-minute counter and the subsidiary seconds dial are at 12 and 6 o’clock, respectively, on the vertical centre axis. This symmetric arrangement gives the 1815 Rattrapante a balanced and expressive personality. Additionally, the peripheral tachometer scale allows average speeds to be determined.
Beating at the heart of the new timepiece, which is limited to 200 watches, is the manufacture movement L101.2. The entire rattrapante chronograph mechanism is configured in such a way that it is visible through the sapphire-crystal caseback, allowing the complex switching processes to be observed in detail.
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The control of elapsed and lap-time measurements is handled by two column wheels; when fully wound, the mainspring barrel delivers a power reserve of 58 hours. In connection with the screw balance, also manufactured in-house, the freely oscillating Lange balance spring guarantees excellent rate accuracy at a frequency of 21,600 semi-oscillations per hour (3 hertz).
All upper sides of the moving parts of the rattrapante chronograph, such as levers, springs and jumpers, are decorated with straight graining while the peripheral chamfers are polished.
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