Tudor Pelagos FXD Alinghi Red Bull

TUDOR unveils the brand new Pelagos FXD 42mm to celebrate its partnership with Alinghi Red Bull Racing, drawing inspiration from yacht racing. This watch embodies the daring spirit required to contend in the most competitive yacht race in history.

Prioritizing legibility, the matte dial showcases the same hue as the hull of the AC75. TUDOR, in collaboration with Julien Faure, develops a highly technical strap construction for the Pelagos FXD models. The strap consists of a 22 mm “Team Blue” jacquard-woven ribbon with red accents and a titanium “D” buckle with a self-gripping fastening system, ensuring adaptability to different wrist sizes and exceptional comfort during wear.

Empowering the Pelagos FXD with robustness and precision, the Calibre MT5602, which powers the watch, displays hour, minute, and seconds functions. The Calibre MT5813 powers the Chrono version, which also displays the same with the added Chrono  seconds no minutes. They both offer the signature look and feel of TUDOR Manufacture Calibres, with an openwork tungsten monobloc rotor and bridges and mainplate featuring alternating sand-blasted and polished surfaces adorned with laser decorations.

I have yet to get hands with either of these FXD models, but all the reviews I’ve seen are quite positive. As far as the design goes, I really do like the fact that these can only be worn with a strap, as they will take on so many different looks, depending on the strap combinations and colours you go for. An important design feature is the integrated lug bars, theses are low set and will keep the strap very close to your wrist. The FXD was designed for use by the French Navy, the Marine Nationale.
While fixed spring bars were once fairly common on military-issued watches, they have become something of an oddity in today’s watch industry. The advantage of fixed spring bars lies in their ability to eliminate the risk of losing a watch due to a spring bar failure. However, the downside is that they limit the wearing options of the FXD to 22mm single pass straps.

One notable difference between the standard FXD and these Alinghi Red Bull FXD models is the case material. The standard FXD use a Titanium case, which weighs in at around 89g with a strap, whilst the Alinghi come in at around 70g. So whilst you may feel almost like you can’t feel it on your wrist, you also won’t have the slight heft of the Titanium case, so you will probably be more aware of the rotor moving.

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