Nautilus 5711/1A (Blue, 2006-2021)

The blue-dial Nautilus 5711 is a steel automatic watch with three hands, a date and a bracelet designed as part of the case. It arrived in 2006, thirty years after Patek Philippe introduced the original Nautilus. The broad rounded frame and projecting sides were still there, but the new watch could be opened from the back, where a sapphire window revealed the movement.

The shape came from the original 1976 design by Gérald Genta. Its sealed case recalled a ship's porthole, including the extensions at either side. On the 5711 those extensions are more rounded. The bracelet begins wide at the case and narrows towards the clasp, with bright polished centre links between brushed outer sections. The watch is not just a round dial hung between two lengths of bracelet; the changing widths are part of the outline.

Across the face, horizontal raised lines run behind the applied hour markers. The blue darkens towards the edge. There is little to interrupt the pattern: a date window at three and a long seconds hand moving from the centre. The original large Nautilus had only hour and minute hands, so that moving seconds hand is one of the quiet differences between the generations.

The mechanism changed during the 5711's life as well. Patek's 2006 launch document specifies calibre 315 SC. Subsequent examples used the 324 SC, and in 2019 the company introduced the 26-330 S C, which stops the seconds hand when the crown is pulled out for setting. The same model name therefore spans more than one movement.

Patek records the original blue version under suffix -001 from 2006 to 2009 and the later -010 from 2010 to 2021. A green dial appeared in the reference's final production year, but it is a different version. Here the blue dial is the subject: a broad patterned surface framed by steel, with a calendar small enough to leave most of it alone.