Polo is the sport of a true gentleman. The perfect union of man and beast, of strength and precision, speed and serenity. For its part, the RM 53-01 is the ‘smashing’ new result of the encounter between Richard Mille and Pablo Mac Donough, one of the world’s best players. After the first, armoured solution created to grace the wrist of Pablo Mac Donough, this new incarnation of the Polo collection we present here is the fruit of exhaustive fieldwork and thousands of hours of Research & Development. The RM 53-01 Tourbillon Pablo Mac Donough demonstrated the exceptional resistance of this caliber to shocks – indispensable under the circumstances – combined with a new aesthetic. The sapphire laminated glass of the RM 53-01 is a world premiere in the realm of watchmaking, capable of absorbing extreme shocks without breakage. Shock is the enemy of a tourbillon movement. Richard Mille’s solution to this? Why, a cable-suspended movement! The atypical architecture of this design required the creation of two separate base plates. The first, or ‘peripheral’ plate, is fixed to the case and supports the tensioner mechanisms. The second, known as the ‘central’ plate, is linked to the peripheral plate by cables and incorporates the wheels comprising the caliber as well as the winding mechanism. The central base plate rests, like a spider in the middle of its web, on two braided steel cables just 0.27 mm in diameter. These cables, sketching a three-dimensional structure in their path through 10 pulleys, are anchored by 4 tensioners .The watchmaker is responsible for tensioning the cables by rotating a spline screw located at the center of each tensioner. By ensuring an even distribution of tension, this pulley system guarantees perfect balance of the whole mechanism
