New Speake-Marin with manual wind movement – Marin 2 Mk1 Thalassa

Peter Speake-Marin released a new watch with a new in-house developed hand wound movement. A magnificent achievement from this independent master watchmaker!

The new Marin 2 Mk-I Thalassa is the second watch from Peter Speake-Marin with an in-house developed movement. Last year Speake-Marin released the Marin1 and the Piccadilly 1in20, his first watches with an in-house developed movement (caliber SM2). Inside the Marin 2 ticks caliber SM2m, an all new manual wound movement that is developed from the ground up.

Although the name suggests it is ‘only’ a non-automatic version of the SM2 that was released last year, Peter told me almost every part of the new caliber had to be redesigned. It was not simply removing the automatic winding system.

The Marin 2 is like the Marin 1, entirely designed by Speake-Marin. Every component of the case, dial and the movement is (again) designed by Speake-Marin himself, which is an incredible achievement!

The case of the Marin 2 is Speake-Marin’s typical Piccadilly case, round with pronounced lugs and a beautiful diamond shaped crown. With a diameter of 42mm and only 12mm thick the white gold case wears comfortable on the wrist. While it’s case reminds of previous Speake-Marin models, the dial is totally new. Although it’s very different from previous models, Speake-Marin’s signature style elements are easy to recognize.

The dial exists of two parts, a blued-hardened steel outer ring and a transparent sapphire inner dial, that shows the beautiful new hand-finished movement. The luminous markers on the outer ring are applied by hand and are totally flush with the surface.

And look at the nine o’clock position…. No seconds hand, but a blued steel seconds wheel. If you take a closer look, it’s design could easily remind you of the winding rotor found on automatic Speake-Marin movements. The blued steel hands, also filled with super luminova, are designed in the typical style that originates from Speake-Marin’s Foundation watch.

The entire movement is designed with without any compromise. Speake-Marin wanted a movement that is designed from the ground up to be reliable and easy to service, like caliber SM2. For example, a window around the balance allows it to be easily viewed (nice for the owner) and also easily removed for service without having to remove many other parts.

While the calibre SM2m shares the underlying architecture of the SM2 automatic movement, it required developing a new mainspring, mainspring barrel, new barrel bridge, new train bridge, new main plate and a new setting mechanism combined with the calendar mechanism. Impressive isn’t it? 

Caliber SM2m looks breath-taking with it’s hand-finished German silver bridges. The over-sized jewels and screws and the elegant, double-ended swan’s neck for the regulation are simply stunning. Although the SM2m appears to be a simple movement, it comprises no less than 146 parts, more than many tourbillons! All of of these parts have been manufactured specifically for this calibre, so there much more to the SM2m than what you might expect.

Caliber SM2m has a power reserve of 80 hours and beats with 3Hz or 21,600 vibrations per hour.  It features a double-ended swan’s neck regulator for fine adjustment and has a Breguet over-coil chronometer balance.

The Speake-Marin Marin 2 Mk1 Thalassa has a white gold case and is limited to only 30 pieces. For more information take a look at the Speake-Marin website.