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CLERC Underwater Flight Discovery Tour 2015

“Another world”, “another dimension”, “surreal”, “once in a lifetime experience”, “unbelievable” are just some of the reactions heard from our flight school guests during last week’s CLERC Underwater Flight Discovery tour in magnificent Vancouver, B.C. At the controls: a lively group of press and media bloggers (and our very own CEO) who jumped at the opportunity to learn how to fly underwater compliments of CLERC Watches and Sub Aviator Systems.

Less than one hundred humans have had an opportunity to experience this in the history of mankind. Judging from the looks on their faces after that first dive, it’s an experience they will not soon forget [VIDEO].

This two-day odyssey started July 16th with a hearty breakfast and a full tour of the Nuytco factory where the submersibles are designed and manufactured. Nuytco founder Phil Nuytten personally led the visit. After a quick lunch, all our student pilots hopped into both cockpit pods of the SuperAviator exploration machines for a complete rundown of all the systems including life support, communication, and navigation.

The next day July 17th started bright and early at dawn as everyone met up for the quick trip down to Sunset Marina. SuperAviator and a full operations crew was there waiting for everyone to take the controls. After a brief pre-flight check, each of our guests got a chance to experience underwater flight sitting right behind Chief Pilot John Jo Lewis.

How long did each dive last? About an hour according to the official Hydroscaph Central Chronograph CHY-585 that was strapped to the outside dashboard to chronograph each dive helping keep everything on time and on record. Thanks to our guest and now certified underwater pilot Justin Mastine-Frost for the amazing Hydroscaph shots during the event! What did it feel like from the pilot’s perspective? Underwater flight student Justin Mastine-Frost filmed it live here! [VIDEO].

 

Two companies – CLERC and Sub Aviator Systems – resulting in one team, one vision, and the never-ending quest for exploration, innovation, and pushing the limits. This is the unique partnership our guests had a chance to experience recently in Vancouver. CLERC is proud to be defining a brand new segment of the luxury market with its own line of personal luxury submersibles. For more information about Orcasub and how you too can discover underwater flight from the comforts of your own personal luxury submersible, click here.

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The Orcasub personal luxury submersible.

 

Learn to Fly Under Water, Then Tell the World About it

UPDATE: Dates for our Underwater Flight Discovery experience have been set for July 16th and 17th.

CLERC – the first and only Swiss luxury watch company with its own line of personal luxury submersibles – invites carefully-selected members of press and media to learn how to fly under water. Then tell the world about it!

If you were at Baselworld last March, you may have seen footage of Super Aviator at the CLERC booth. This amazing and unique submersible is the precursor to Orcasub – the personal luxury submersible we are producing and marketing in partnership with Nuytco/Sub Aviator Systems in Vancouver, Canada. In a way, you could say it’s Orcasub 1.0.

These super-fast, easy-to-use, and maneuverable submersibles can fly two pilots in atmospheric comfort and safety down to 2,000 feet. In all human history until now, people who have personally witnessed life at such depths can be counted on a single hand. But now CLERC and Sub Aviator Systems are putting underwater flight at anyone’s hands – anyone, that is, who happens to be a member of the press or media interested in sharing this unforgettable experience with their audience!

Because in the second half of July this year, CLERC and Sub Aviator Systems will be hosting press and media guests at the Vancouver manufacture for an exclusive two-day Underwater Flight Discovery experience.

DAY ONE will include a full guided tour of the factory and R&D facilities at Nuytco Headquarters. Evoking the quintessential “Q Branch” scene in every James Bond movie is the best way to describe this experience. For a quick glimpse, check this out or visit our dedicated Facebook page.

DAY TWO consists of pre-flight instruction and certification. After successful completion of this phase, “students” gear up, head out to the water shore, and jump into a Super Aviator cockpit to experience hands-on underwater flight.

Guests who have already booked this event are bringing video crews with them – including underwater photographers. If you qualify and would like to reserve your underwater flight discovery experience with us, email us at: openwater@clercwatches.wpengine.com or catch us on Twitter or Facebook. Seats are extremely limited – we will do our best to accommodate as many guest as we can. Thank you for your understanding.

CLERC is defining a new extreme luxury category, and opening a new era in the history of human exploration machines. You may not have ridden on the first train, on flown on the first airplane, or sat inside the first space mission rocket. But now thanks to CLERC, you might very well be among the few chosen human beings to have experienced underwater flight up close and personal in 2015!

Diving for CLERC: Meet Professional Underwater Photographer Chris Parsons

This week we highlight Chris Parsons – another CLERC Professional Underwater Photographer. Yes, it’s another Chris, but a very different one at that!

Partly because this Chris did something most people only dream of: leave everything behind to pursue his dream. Once a very successful software consultant, he left civilization behind to pursue his life-long passion for the oceans. He bought a boat, moved to Florida (USA), and started living for sailing and diving exclusively.

The results? Over 2,000 dives, 500 hours on re-breather, Coast Guard certified to captain 200 ton ships, accomplished sailor, and of course, thousands of amazing professional underwater photos and videos to his credit. Just visit Chris’ website for a small sample of his underwater artwork.

“I absolutely love the ocean, and am in awe of it. If I had my way, every day would be on (or under) the water. I am concerned about its well being though, and I hope that through my images I can, in some small way, help people be aware of how fragile it is.”

Chris’ work has been published in major magazines including Alert Diver, Sport Diver, Scuba Diving, Southern Living and River Watch. Loggerhead Marine Life Center, Sea Shepard, National Geographic, and the Tennessee Aquarium have all featured his photographs.

TM_585These days, Chris dives with a CLERC Hydroscaph Central Chronograph on his wrist. He likes the chronograph’s striking visibility at depth in the lowest of light conditions. Orange is the last color the human eye can distinguish under water. And of course, the CHY-585 – Clockwork Orange as it’s called – is the toughest, most rugged diving watch he owns.

He will soon be heading out to Belize and Honduras to bring us some more spectacular underwater content so stay tuned for that!

Here are some of the numerous spectacular shots Chris has been sending our way for the past months:

Diving for CLERC: Meet Professional Underwater Photographer Chris Leidy

They work during day or night, and spend their lives changing time zones using boats or airplanes. They travel to the most exotic and challenging dive sites on earth. They’re more at home 100 feet under water than anywhere on land – except maybe for the local hotspot bars – and they can carry, fix and field-strip and reassemble video equipment faster than the most seasoned TV war correspondent.

They’re super tough, infinitely persistent, resourceful, and consummate professional divers. But most importantly, they’re passionate. Passionate about the oceans, passionate about sea life, and passionate about getting the right shot or film no matter what it takes.

These rare and talented CLERC Professional Underwater Photographers are the amazing folks who help us deliver unique underwater content to the world on a regular basis. They don’t run the streets. They’re difficult to find – it’s a very small community. Word of mouth matters. And because of this, they’re also booked most of the year. Most of them have packed agendas many months ahead.

Meet professional underwater photographer Chris Leidy. Aka: “TRUE TACK” – His motto: Move in truth against the winds of life. We like it 🙂

Chris travels the world connecting with people through the language of his photographs. Throughout his long career, he’s been to Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Micronesia, Vanuatu, Coco’s Islands, Sumatra, Tonga, and the Solomon Islands, to name a few. Never one to follow guidebooks, he lets fate define his experience while experiencing different cultures and settings. Chris will often spend months in a given location – sometimes in draconian conditions – while he absorbs the local culture and fauna through his lenses.

He is a master at conquering his fear and makes an art form of living on the edge. These difficult and dangerous locations give him solace and allow him to re-connect with his soul.

In the ocean, in its mysterious and unpredictable depths, among the landscapes and creatures that he encounters is where he snaps his extraordinary photographs, bearing testimony for the rest of us. Chris consistently attracts the attention of art collectors, ocean enthusiasts, and photography buffs who often bid on his works. Several months ago, he attracted the eye of CLERC CEO Gérald Clerc, who was then able to track him down and sign him on as one of our official CLERC underwater photographers.

IMG_0132Chris embodies the values of our brand: courage, curiosity, an insatiable appetite for exploration, discovery, and pushing the boundaries. That, and the ability to thrive in the most extreme conditions of life. That’s why he likes to wear one of many CLERC Hydroscaphs from his multi-series collection (Central Chronographs and H1) on his underwater missions.

Chris is the grandson of renowned designer Lilly Pulitzer and great-grandson of Joseph Pulitzer, but namesake aside, he has clearly established his own legacy. His work has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions across the country including a prominent place in the Elle Décor Show House at Miami’s Art Basel. Chris’ photos have been featured in major publications including Wall Street Journal, Forbes, House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, Ocean Home, Conde Nast Traveler, and Domino Magazine, to name a few.

See Chris Leidy’s work on our CLERC Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts. And visit his website or his Instagram account to learn more about the man and his work. Here are some of his most celebrated shots:

 

 

 

Baselworld 2015: Discover the Orcasub Personal Luxury Submersible

For the latest, up-to-date information on Orcasub visit CLERC Exploration Machines on Facebook.

We’ve always said the Hydroscaph diving watch collection was a “new breed of Swiss luxury watches” but in fact, CLERC is further evolving into a new breed of Swiss luxury watch company and forging a new era in the industry.

This is because we have entered into a long-term, multi-level partnership with Sub Aviator Systems, the producers of Orcasub – a Personal Luxury Submersible.Logo-01

Both CLERC and Sub Aviator Systems make what they call “exploration machines”. While CLERC’s powerful yet stylish machines fit handsomely on the adventurous male wrist, Sub Aviator Systems submersibles fly swiftly at 2,000 feet under water. In both cases, these creations are meant to be used in the most extreme of conditions. But it didn’t take our two companies very long to realize that the fit between us was much more than skin-deep.

In fact, you could say it’s symbiotic, because we both share philosophies, values, personalities, and engineering savvy. With this new partnership, we will also share the sort of technical and R&D resources which until now had never been available to traditional Swiss watch companies. Not to mention a combined 200 year legacy of innovation and technical prowess.

NEWT_logo2That’s because Sub Aviator Systems is actually manufacturing partners with a company called Nuytco. And Nuytco is to underwater exploration what NASA is to the Space Program. In fact, NASA astronauts train at Nuytco’s underwater facilities in Vancouver. Owner Phil Nuytten is a legend in the industry on par with men like Jean-Michel Cousteau, who is a close friend and colleague. (He still maintains ties to the Cousteau family). A commercial diver since the 1960s, Phil spent his life pioneering new underwater technologies and tactics. Few if any people have contributed as much to the world of diving – commercially, militarily, and recreationally – than he has for the past fifty years.

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CLERC CEO Gérald sits in the Nuytco Deepworker submersible.

Nuytco has been involved in almost every major underwater operation for science, research, rescue, construction, entertainment, and military application known to man. Phil’s regular clients include the national Navies of virtually every country in the world, the US Navy Seals, NASA, Hollywood moguls (guess how movie classics like Titanic and The Abyss were filmed under water), scientists, researchers, rescuers, and the list goes on. When there’s a problem to solve, a new device or tool to invent, or technical limits to surmount, people call on Nuytco.

For CLERC, the ability to tap into this experience and expertise is an industry game changer. The advantages from a product development, research, manufacturing, and testing perspective are limitless. Improved construction, new materials, greater depths, added safety features, and resilience are some of the key benefits. And no other dive watch companies will be able to test their product for corrosion, legibility, air and water pressure, extreme temperatures, and shock all at the same time and all under real-life extreme depth conditions. Something Nuytco does routinely for all its equipment, and will now do on every new Hydroscaph model starting with the new 2015 GMT model. In many ways, thanks to this partnership, CLERC gets access to the most revered and prestigious “underwater exploration laboratory” in the world.

For Sub Aviator Systems, it’s about accessing 140 years of CLERC experience in the demanding field of luxury, as CLERC will now market and promote the Orcasub personal luxury crafts on a global scale. CLERC will also advise on interior finishing, customization, and comfort features of the cockpit area.

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CLERC CEO Gérald tries the heads-up display on board Orcasub precursor Super Aviator.

These super-fast, easy-to-use, and maneuverable submersibles will fly two pilots in atmospheric comfort and safety down to 2,000 feet. In all human history until now, people who have personally witnessed life at such depths can be counted on a single hand. But Orcasub will put underwater flight at anyone’s hands – anyone, that is, who can part with the $2 million it takes to custom-build it. But rest assured, that price includes complete Flight Training certification. A lifetime experience no one ever forgets!

CLERC is forging a new era in the history of human exploration machines. And thanks to Sub Aviator Systems and CLERC, deep-sea exploration will soon become as routine as hopping into your exotic car for a quick trip to the local cigar shop.

For a PDF version of this exciting announcement, please click here.