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THE TECHNICAL REFINEMENTS OF THE PORTOFINO
HAND-WOUND TOURBILLON RÉTROGRADE
Your IWC watch shows you the time in hours and minutes,
the retrograde date as well as the power reserve. The mech-
anical movement has a power reserve of approximately 8 days
(192 hours) when fully wound. Your Portofino Hand-Wound Tour-
billon Rétrograde is protected by an arched-edge sapphire glass
of hardness grade 9 on Mohs' scale. Your watch is water-resistant
3 bar. Your watch is also equipped with a flying hacking minute
tourbillon. The hacking tourbillon has two spring arms that enable
timing with down-to-the second accuracy. The tourbillon, an
invention made in the aftermath of the French Revolution, has
always been regarded as the ultimate challenge in the quest for
absolute mechanical watchmaking precision. More specifically,
the purpose of the mechanism is to counterbalance the one-sided
pull of the earth's gravity on the balance. This is because the
residual gravitational error of the balance influences the accuracy,
depending on the position of the watch. Fortunately, there is a
way to overcome this problem caused by one of the basic laws
of physics: the balance, the pallets and the escape wheel are
mounted in a minute cage that rotates around itself once every
minute. In this way, the effect of the gravitational error is practic-
ally eliminated. To ensure that this extraordinary watch continues
P O R T O F I N O H A N D - W O U N D T O U R B I L L O N R É T R O G R A D E