The partnership between Richard Mille and Rafa Nadal started in 2010. Since then, several watches have been released with Rafa Nadal’s name on it. However, one of the most special watches ever released by Richard Mille for Nadal is the 50-piece limited edition RM 27-04 Tourbillon Rafael Nadal presented in 2020. Twenty-two years later and just after Rafael Nadal has won his 14th championship at the Roland-Garros yesterday, we bring you this rare bird. Rafa is the undisputed king of the clay court and is the only player in history to win so many French Open finals.
In 2020 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Richard Mille’s partnership with Rafael Nadal, the brand released the RM27-04, a manual wound tourbillon with incredible lightness and the ability to resist shocks and the extreme impacts when worn by Rafael Nadal during a tennis match.
Fitted with a TitaCarb —a high-performance polyamide that has been reinforced with up to 38.5% carbon fiber— case with a brownish hue, the total weight of the watch with its strap is merely 30 grams and the movement alone has a total weight of only 3.4 grams. The Richard Mille RM 27-04 Tourbillon Rafael Nadal was released in a limited edition of only 50 pieces and sold out immediately.
The skeletonized movement is supported by a micro-blasted string mesh structure woven from a single woven steel cable measuring only 0.27 mm in diameter, and that was made to resemble the strings of a tennis racket. The mesh is held in place by two turnbuckles featuring a 5N gold PVD treatment. The yellow and red accents on the markers and on the ‘Richard Mille’ and ‘Swiss Made’ imprints evoke the colors of Spain’s flag, as Nadal is from there.
The RM 27-04 may be a superlight watch but it was designed to withstand the shocks and G forces generated by Nadal’s incredible force when hitting a tennis ball. This particular Richard Mille can withstand acceleration forces up to 12,000Gs which is far superior to the tolerance of any other Richard Mille watch including the Bubba Watson. The tourbillon located between 7 and 8 o’clock makes a full rotation every minute.
The movement with a power reserve of approximately 38 hours is fully visible on the display case back and its architecture is very unique. The baseplate and bridges on this manual wound tourbillon movement are crafted from grade 5 titanium, a biocompatible, highly corrosion-resistant, and remarkably rigid alloy, which guarantees the perfect functioning of the gear train. The alloy is 90% titanium, 6% aluminum, and 4% vanadium. The use of grade 5 titanium combined with a black PVD treatment lends the whole assembly great rigidity, as well as precise surface flatness. This combination enhances the alloy’s mechanical properties, which explains why it is frequently used in the aerospace, aeronautics, and automobile industries.
Inspired by the process used to string a tennis racket, the watchmaker starts by securing the steel cable to the turnbuckle at 5 o’clock. He then proceeds to weave the mesh structure, stringing each of the main strings one after the other before beginning to interlace the cross strings. Weaving over and under the main strings, the cable enters the hollowed-out titanium flange 38 times before ultimately finishing its journey in the turnbuckle at 10 o’clock.
Without a doubt, a tour de force watch for the most impressive tennis player of all time. The perfect watch to celebrate Nadal’s 14th victory at the Roland Garros French Open. Light as a feather but as robust as it gets. One of the most impressive watches ever released by Richard Mille. When it was released in September of 2020, the Richard Mille RM 27-04 Tourbillon Rafa Nadal had a sticker price of $1,050,000 USD. At the end of last year, a RM 27-04 was sold at the Phillips Geneva Watch Auction XIV in excess of CHF 1.6 Million Swiss Francs —approximately $1.7 Million USD. It really doesn’t get any better.
For more info on Richard Mille click here.
