24 Hours of LeMans
Monday, 30 April 2012
Thursday, 26 April 2012
Wednesday, 25 April 2012
Can You Say Rolex Hotness?!?!
Rolex Hotness: Kim Kardashian
Diamond Studded Rolex Watches
Kim Kardashian knows what time it is ;-) She wears different Rolex watches, usually with diamonds...I only have one thing to say to you...Simmer down now!!!
Rolex Datejust with Diamond Bezel & Dial
–Wearing My Rolex–
All I want to do is tell you I love you
That's when I start promising the world
To a brand new girl I don't even know yet
Next thing she's wearing my Rolex
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
...Rolex Studio Shot Of The Day...
Roy's Big Crown Rolex Submariner
It never ceases to amaze me, how absolutely timeless Rolex watch design is. Take for instance this vintage Rolex Submariner from the 1950s. In particular, I was tripping on how much modern Rolex watches have been inspired by past design. Notice this 1950s Rolex Submariner, essentially has a Supercase, which Rolex brought back when then they introduced the ceramic Submariner.
Monday, 23 April 2012
Saturday, 21 April 2012
...Rolex Time Machine...
The Big Clock
The Durable Rolex is Tough and Timeless
GQ Magazine: July 1993
Dave from British Columbia wrote in with a few questions about the difference between Steve McQueen's Rolex 5512 and 5513, and he also sent along this Rolex article from GQ Magazine from July of 1993, which offers fascinating insight. It is fascinating when you consider this article was published almost 20 years ago!!!
Note: Click Magazine Pages To Increase Size & Readability
Friday, 20 April 2012
Dalai Lama
Rolex Keeping The Time Of His Life
Very Rare Lapis Blue Dial
The Dalai Lama is considered to be the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, and he is renowned for his wisdom diplomacy, kindness, smile and peaceful nature. It is difficult to discover what kind or watch he wears, because he always wears his watches, rotated 180 degrees around his wrist. When a watch is word backwards on the wrist, it serves to camouflage the watch, which makes it difficult to observe.
The Dalai Lama also typically goes out of his way to make certain his watches never appear to be fancy or ostentatious. His holiness does so, but typically putting them on inexpensive stretchable Speidel watch bands. In this recent photo, we see the Dalai Lama with Prince Charles, and the Dalai Lama is wearing a yellow gold Rolex Day-Date with a blue lapis dial.
The photo below shows the same Lapis Blue dial the Dalai Lama is wearing in the photo above. This beautiful dial combination is very rare.
In this next photo, taken more than 5 years ago, we see the Dalai Lama wearing a two tone Rolex Datejust on a jubilee bracelet.
Wednesday, 18 April 2012
Paul Newman Daytona Fatstrap Revelations
An Exclusive Look At Paul Newman's Fatstrap
For the first time ever, the answer to question has been delivered, as we see in the photo of Paul Newman below–sporting his now trademark Fatstrap. This is the clearest photo, that shows the EXACT shape of his fatstrap.
Here is another photo from the same photo shoot. I have not had a chance to add these to my definitive "The Complete History Of The Paul Newman Daytona" yet, but I will in the future. In the meantime, remember, you saw them on Jake's Rolex World first.
Tuesday, 17 April 2012
Sunday, 15 April 2012
James Cameron
How And Why The Titanic Sank
If you have been following the 100th Anniversary of the Titanic sinking on Jake's Rolex World you will enjoy this. James Cameron is like a modern Jacques-Yves Cousteau!!! Just a few weekends ago, James Cameron set a world record for a solo dive!!! First we start with a shot of James Cameron on the Colbert Report, and he is wearing his now trademark Rolex DEEPSEA SEA-DWELLER.
Here is the funny footage from the Colbert Report.
Here is the official trailer for the completely redone 3D version of Titanic.
The photo below of James Cameron was taken 15 years ago when he was directing Titanic back in 1997. Notice he is wearing his trademark Rolex Submariner.
100th Anniversary Of Titanic Sinking
Today marks the 100th Anniversary of the Titanic sinking out in the Atlantic Ocean, while on her maiden voyage. The RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner, and in the following photos we see her as she leaves Southampton, England for her infamous maiden voyage on April 10, 1912.
Where did the name Titanic come from? Take a look at the men standing next to the Titanic Propellers as seen below.
The Titanic visited Cherbourg, France and Queenstown, Ireland before she headed out into the Atlantic Ocean on her way to New York in the U.S.A. Notice in the photo above, on the back of the Titanic, underneath the TITANIC designation, it says LIVERPOOL, which was where the ship was registered.
On April 14, four days after she left Europe she was 375 miles south of Newfoundland, when she hit an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. At 2:18 am, The Titanic began sinking with more than 1000 passengers still on-board. Passengers in the water died almost instantly from hypothermia.
BTW, when the Titanic sank, it was obviously not waterproof, and since we have been examining the history of waterproof watches lately on Jake's Rolex World, it is interesting that Rolex did not bring the worlds first waterproof watch to market until 1926, which was 14 years after the Titanic sank–just to put things into perspective.
...Rolex Super Coolness...
Ralph White
Ralph White
Discovering & Exploring The Titanic
A Brilliant Career With Rolex Keeping The Time Of His Life
1942-2008
Before we get underway with this Rolex history I must offer very special thanks to my pal, David Concannon for his invaluable contribution to this story. Ralph White was David Concannon's best friend and this story is dedicated to the memory of their friendship...
To this day, whenever anybody speaks of the RMS Titanic story it still sends shivers down peoples spine. The epic story of the Titanic is the thing that dreams are made of. More than a hundred years ago, construction began on the RMS Titanic in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Titanic was the mother of all luxury ships and many, many millions of man hours went into her construction.
This is an amazing story about intersecting worlds and a true Rolex explorer and submariner named Ralph White. In many ways Ralph White is an unsung hero, but that all changes today on Jake's Rolex World. You see, the thing that inspires me to dig deeper into researching these amazing Rolex history stories, has little to do with the watches, but instead the people who wore and wear them.
It is challenging to try to articulate what makes people strive to achieve amazing feats with Rolex watches on their wrist, but they do. This is an undisputed fact. It is almost as if the Rolex tool watches have a soul of their own, that inspires people to think differently and aspire to achieve great things!!!
Raising The Titanic
Making The Dream Reality
with Rolex Keeping Time
This is a story about a man who achieved many amazing things in his life. Ralph White was a cameraman for National Geographic for a quarter-century and he was part of the team that not only found the RMS Titanic buried in its watery Atlantic grave, but also raised a good part of the Titanic and its amazing treasure.
Ralph White is pictured below in 1987 out in the Atlantic Ocean with the RMS Titanic's Bell he discovered and brought up topside. Notice he is wearing his trademark stainless steel Rolex Submariner [Reference 1680] on his right wrist–Steve McQueen style!!!
What Kind Of Man Wears Rolex?
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the Rolex Watch Corporation methodically marketed its tool watches to men of action “a special kind of man,” in the words of Rolex’s advertising at the time, who was willing “to face the silent perils of the maritime underworld” while wearing “a special kind of watch: a watch he’s willing to stake his life on.”
Such men were featured in a series of Rolex ads, under the banners: “If you were working here [4,000 feet deep under the sea in a research submersible] tomorrow, you’d wear a Rolex.
A Rolex ad from 1968 read: “If you were looking for lost empires here [diving in the Yucatan] tomorrow, you’d wear a Rolex.”
The Real Deal
A Real Tool Watch for A Real Submariner
Few men, of course, fit the description of this “special kind of man,” although many undoubtedly have fancied themselves as such. There was, however, one exception: Ralph B. White.
Ralph White was born in California during World War II and raised in Hawaii. After graduating from military school, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1960, just as little known conflict was boiling over in a far off land known as Viet Nam. White served six years in the Marines, including two tours of duty in Viet Nam as a Force Reconnaissance Team Leader conducting raids behind enemy lines. During his military service in Southeast Asia, White acquired the first timepiece he would stake his life on, a Rolex GMT-Master (Ref. No. 1675).
After his discharge from the military in 1966, White opened a parachuting school in Lancaster, Calif., became a member of the U.S. Parachute Team and pursued his love of photography. Always a tinkerer, he developed a helmet cam for filming aerial scenes, and he became a free-fall cameraman for the TV show Ripcord. Thus began a distinguished career as an award-winning cinematographer, video cameraman and editor that lasted for more than 40 years, including more than 25 years as a contract cameraman for the National Geographic Society.
White eventually had hundreds of motion picture and television credits to his name. He was a field producer and cameramen for the television series Those Amazing Animals, That’s Incredible, as well as Animal World, Challenging Sea, Treasure, Islands In The Sun, True Adventures, The Wonderful World of Women and Wanderlust. White documented the behind-the-scenes makings of several major motion pictures, including The Deep, Tora-Tora-Tora and The Valley Of The Dolls. He covered the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat for ABC’s Wide World of Sports, NBC’s Sports In Action and CBS’ Sports Spectacular.
But White is best known for his work at the National Geographic Society, where he and his best friend and frequent partner, photographer Emory Kristof, pioneered the development of advanced remote cameras, 3D Video, HDTV, and deep ocean imaging and lighting systems.
Together, White and Kristof filmed the Discovery of Active Volcanic Vents along with their unique biological colonies in the deep waters of the east Pacific rise and Mid-Atlantic ridges, the first multinational Exploration of Lake Baykal in remote Siberia, and hundreds of species of whales and sharks, including the largest ever seen flesh eating shark, a 30 foot long Somniosus Pacificus.
Ralph White traveled to both poles, searched for the Loch Ness Monster, and filmed the 153-year-old wreck of the H.M.S. Breadalbane under the Arctic ice cap in 1984, with Dr. Joe MacInnis, which the following add is based upon:
Ralph White's NGS credits include Loch Ness, Suruga Bay, Wild Horses, Reptiles, Sharks, The Beebe Project and The Great Whales, which won the coveted Emmy Award for Best Documentary. White’s cinematography also won the Grenoble Film Festival Gold Medal, Golden Eagle, Cindy and Golden Halo awards.
Somewhere along the way, White lost his coveted Rolex GMT-Master. Shortly before going off to Loch Ness, Scotland in 1978, White replaced his GMT-Master with another Rolex, a Submariner Date (Ref. No. 1680). He would depend on this watch for the next 30 years, through some of the greatest expeditions of the later part of the 20th century.
While he was in Loch Ness with Kristof, a photographer named David Doubilet, and a young oceanographer named Robert Ballard, Ph.D., White, Kristof and Ballard hatched an idea to search for the Holy Grail of underwater exploration, the R.M.S Titanic. Ralph White is pictured below with Dr. Robert Ballard.
David Doubilet is no stranger to anybody familiar with Rolex DEEP-SEA photography, and he is pictured below in a recent Rolex DEEP-SEA, SEA-DWELLER ad. As I just mentioned, David Doubilet was one of the original team members of the group that decided to try and find the Titanic with Ralph White.
In 1978, Ralph White served as a cameraman for the National Geographic Team that deployed a 12,500 foot deep ocean imaging and lighting systems from the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Evergreen over the reported sinking site of the Titanic. The expedition was unsuccessful, but the concept was sound. The hunt for the Titanic was then put on hold while White and Kristof went off to the High Arctic to film the wreck of the H.M.S. Breadalbane with Dr. Joe MacInnis.
In the summer of 1985, White was the cameraman for the four man American Team of Dr. Robert Ballard, Emory Kristof and Billy Lang, beginning Phase One (the sonar search) for the R.M.S. Titanic aboard the IFREMER research vessel Le Suroit utilizing the French “S.A.R.” side scan sonar system. This six week search covered 90 percent of the area where the Titanic was thought to have foundered, and it has been credited with discovering where the Titanic was not located.
The search resumed in August, with White serving as the cameraman for Phase Two (electronic imaging search) aboard the Woods Hole Research vessel Knorr, but not before the team first found and investigated the sinking of two American nuclear submarines, the U.S.S. Scorpion and U.S.S. Thresher, which had sunk under mysterious circumstances during the height of the Cold War in the 1960s.
Discovering The Titanic
After investigating the sinking of these two submarines, White and Ballard’s team aboard the Knorr found the wreck of the Titanic on September 1, 1985. When Dr. Robert Ballard first laid eyes on the Titanic, Ralph White was standing right next to him, filming his reaction and recording the time on his Rolex Submariner [Reference 1680]. That is Ralph White pictured below with the white T-shirt, filming the moment of the Titanic discovery.
In 1987 and 2000, White co-directed the recovery of over 5,000 artifacts from the Titanic wreck site. Among other things, White recovered the ship’s bell from the Titanic’s crow’s nest the telemotor and ship’s wheel from the bridge as seen below.
Ralph White documented just about every inch of the Titanic exterior with camera's and in the photo he took below we see the Titanic's bow.
In 1991, Ralph White was the submersible cameraman and host for the IMAX feature film Titanica; and in 1995-96, he was the expedition leader and second unit cameraman for James Cameron’s Academy Award winning feature film Titanic. Ralph white is pictured below with Titanic director James Cameron.
Ralph White is pictured below with Emory Kristof, and James Cameron.
Ralph White eventually made 35 dives down to the 12,500 foot deep wreck of the Titanic, spending more time on the Titanic than Captain Smith himself. Captain Smith, who was the Captain of the Titanic is pictured below.
Ralph White was qualified as a copilot on the French Nautile and Russian Mir submersibles.
White finished his film-making career working on a number of projects with James Cameron. He was operations supervisor of the Medusa ROV for Cameron’s 3D IMAX film Ghosts of The Abyss, and technologies coordinator for Cameron’s live broadcast from the deck of Titanic for the Discovery Channel’s Last Mysteries of Titanic. White was also the deep sea imaging and guest wreck expert for the History Channel’s Titanic’s Final Moments.
White always relied on a Rolex watch during these expeditions, usually his beloved Submariner.
Ironically for an American, White was knighted for his filming and conservation accomplishments. He was a Knight of the Order of Saint Lazarus and a Knight of the Order of Constantine. More traditionally, his extensive field experience was recognized and rewarded by his peers in exploration.
White was a Fellow of The Explorers Club and a recipient of its prestigious Lowell Thomas Award for life achievements in underwater exploration. He was also a Fellow of The Royal Geographical Society in London; a Fellow and Chairman of the Board of The Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences; and the President of the Adventurers Club in Los Angeles.
Ralph White died suddenly on February 4, 2008, just a few months after participating in his final expedition. He was 66. His collection of Rolex watches, including the 1978 Submariner that he relied on during countless expeditions, many of which were featured in Rolex advertisements over three decades, currently belongs to his family. He can be seen in the photo above sporting his stainless steel Rolex Explorer II with a white dial.
There is a book titled "Three Miles Down" and chapter 10 is about Ralph White. In the book, Ralph White is described as "The envy of every red-blooded 10 year-old boy" and hopefully from enjoying this article you understand why. The Los Angeles Times wrote a fascinating article about Ralph White when he passed away which I recommend reading. It talks about how Ralph's friends have carried out his last wish which was to take his ashes to every continent.
Emory Kristof and Ralph White pictured above filming Titanica
What kind of a man wears Rolex? Sometimes it’s the man behind the camera, filming the expeditions that many of us grew up watching on television, wishing we could be in the same place wearing a Rolex watch. A man like Ralph White.
...A Half Century Exploring the DEEP SEA...
...Rolex Super Coolness...
Dr. Robert Ballard
Dr. Robert Ballard
The Ultimate U.S. Navy DEEP-SEA Discovery
Finding The Titanic
"The DEEP SEA has more history in it than all the museums of the world–combined."
–Dr. Robert Ballard
This week marked the centennial of the launching of the Titanic, which occurred on May 31, 1911, so I thought it would be appropriate to share this amazing story with you.
In 2011 we will be exploring some amazing Rolex history and the career of U.S. Navy Commander, Dr. Robert Ballard, which is mind-boggling. In this story we will learn all about his phenomenal career achievements including how he discovered the Titanic in its underwater DEEP-SEA grave 25 years ago. As a matter of fact, the 25th Anniversary of his discovering the RMS Titanic is coming up on July 1st, 1985.
Dr. Robert Ballard is pictured above wearing his Rolex Submariner
Dr. Robert Ballard is featured below in this fascinating vintage Rolex Submariner magazine advertisement.
In this upcoming story on Dr. Robert Ballard's career, we will explore the most amazing luxury liner that hit an iceberg on April 14, 1912 and sank. The RMS Titanic story is truly epic.
You must click on this image of the Titanic for much more detail
As a side note, director James Cameron made a movie named Titanic which is the highest grossing movie in history bringing in $1.8 Billion at the box office. James Cameron wears a Rolex Submariner and the character in the movie played by Bill Paxton who plays Robert Ballard's character also wears a Rolex Submariner.
In this story we will learn all about how Dr. Robert Ballard found the RMS Titanic and we will even learn about the never before documented connection between the Titanic and the U.S. Navy SEA-LAB.
In this amazing story we will explore the actual Titanic wreckage and see some fascinating photos.
Dr. Robert Ballard
60 Minutes Interview (2 Parts)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
