This year’s flight begins in Münster, but its destination is un-known: The world championship in long-distance gas bal-looning recurs annually in the nation of its penultimate win-ner. The German father-son duo Wilhelm and Benjamin Eimers won the event in 2022 after a more than 60-hour, 1,570-kilometre flight from St. Gallen, Switzerland to Zarevo, Bul-garia.
When the starting shot for the 67th Gordon Bennett Cup is fired against the backdrop of Münster Castle on 13 September, no one knows when or where the world’s oldest and toughest gas balloon race will end. The aim is to land as far away as possible. Soaring to altitudes above 7,000 meters, enduring temperatures as low as –50 degrees Celsius and ensconced in bas-kets with a footprint of a mere 1.2 square meters (the extremely spartan “Tiny Houses of the Skies”), 23 teams from 12 nations navigate through the clouds for several days and many hundreds of kilometers as they vie for the world championship title. This daring long-distance race is named after James Gordon Bennett Jr, erstwhile publisher of the New York Herald. The first balloonists competed in this new discipline in Paris in 1906.
Tutima and the intrepid kings of the skies
Tutima Glashütte supports the Cup this year for the first time as its official timekeeper, but this is not the Saxon watch manufacturer’s only connection to the airborne spectacle. The world recordholder and 2022 world champion, whose victory brought the race to Germany, is Wilhelm Eimers, who also pilots the Tutima hot air balloon at events such as Kiel Week. Now, together with his son Benjamin as co-pilot, he is attempting to win his sixth world championship title in a hydrogen-filled balloon.
A traditional trophy “made in Glashütte”
As official timekeeper of the world championship, Tutima has precisely the right prize up its sleeve: a Grand Flieger Classic, a model that is directly related to the legendary Tutima pilot’s watches from the 1940s. Inside a stainless steel case that has been pressure-tested to 20 atmospheres, this modern classic encases Tutima’s reliable, self-winding Caliber 330, which is visible through a pane of sapphire crystal in the back of the case and bears Tutima’s gold seal on its attrac-tively shaped, rhodium-plated rotor. In addition to the fluted, rotatable bezel with a red marker dot, this time-piece is further distinguished as a characteristic pilot’s watch by a high-quality leather strap with light-coloured stitching. Traditional skeletonised hands and frill-free typography for the numerals contribute to the dial’s optimal readability. In a nutshell: a timeless classic with legendary aviator DNA.