Swiss luxury watch brand Oris has created a limited-edition Big Crown ProPilot watch to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Botswana’s aeromedical rescue organisation Okavango Air Rescue.
About Okavango Air Rescue (O.A.R.)
Okavango Air Rescue (O.A.R.) was founded by Swiss entrepreneur Christian Gross and German-born Dr Misha S. Kruck in 2011. Since then, this aeromedical rescue organisation has been operating in Botswana, a sparsely populated country with lots of remote communities.
Christian was a conservationist as well as a businessman, and had already established environmental organisations such as Animal Management Consultancy and the Breeding Centre for Endangered Arabian Wildlife. Misha had vast medical experience and had worked all over the world, including during stints at International Red Cross and Rega, the Swiss air rescue service.
They moved to Botswana in 2011 and set up O.A.R., a privately-owned and independently funded service that operates helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, as well as a polyclinic, to bring quality medical care to locals and tourists visiting the country.
Oris Okavango Air Rescue Limited Edition
Oris has recently announced a partnership with O.A.R., and a new watch made to celebrate the service’s 10th anniversary.
The Okavango Air Rescue Limited Edition watch is based on the Oris Big Crown ProPilot. Its green dial is inspired by the grasses of the Okavango Delta, and it comes on an exclusive green fabric strap created by Erika’s Originals.
The watch is also supplied with an additional brown leather strap. Dressed in a 41mm diameter stainless steel case, the watch houses a Swiss made automatic movement with 38 hours power reserve.
It has two large baton-style hands for displaying hour and minutes. Its black centre seconds hand features red-colouring on the tip. The indices are also embedded with Super-LumiNova®. The dial also has a date window at 3 o’ clock.
On the stainless steel case-back, the Okavango Air Rescue Limited Edition watch features special engravings.
Limited to 2,011 pieces to mark the founding year of the Okavango Air Rescue Service, each timepiece will be delivered in a leather travel pouch.
About Okavango Delta
Botswana’s Okavango Delta is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa, covers a flat area of more than 20,000km2, and in 2014, it became the 1,000th site to be inscribed onto the UNESCO World Heritage List.
The delta, which is made up of grasslands, marshes, lagoons and thousands of islands, is produced by seasonal flooding, peaking between June and August, Botswana’s dry winter months. During this period, it swells to three times its normal size, causing one of Africa’s greatest concentrations of wildlife.
Botswana is home to the ‘Big Five’ game animals: the lion, leopard, buffalo, elephant and rhinoceros. Together with giraffe, hippos, cheetah, crocodiles and many other species, they make the Okavango Delta one of Africa’s most popular tourist destinations. Almost as diverse is the human population, which is made up of five ethnic groups, each of which has its own language. In the main, their livelihood comes from the delta.
Until the Okavango Air Rescue (O.A.R.) was established in 2011, local people and tourists requiring medical evacuation from remote areas had to wait for aircraft to arrive from neighbouring South Africa.
Today, O.A.R. covers the delta area and the Southern African continent, flying two PC-12 fixed-wing aircraft and two Bell Jetranger 206 III helicopters.
Technical details
Model: Oris Big Crown ProPilot Okavango Air Rescue Limited Edition
Reference 751 7761 4187-Set
Case
Multi-piece stainless steel case
Diameter: 41.00 mm (1.614 inches)
Top glass: Sapphire, domed on both sides, anti-reflective coating inside
Case back: Stainless steel, screwed, special engravings
Operating devices: Stainless steel screw-in security crown
Water resistance 10 bar (100 m)
Dial
Green dial
Hands and indices with Super-LumiNova®
Strap
Green textile strap created by Erika’s Originals exclusively for Oris. Supplied with an additional brown leather strap
Movement
Number Oris 751
Winding: Automatic
Power reserve: 38 hours
Functions
Centre hands for hours, minutes and seconds, date window, instantaneous date, date corrector, fine timing device and stop-second
Limited edition
Limited to 2,011 pieces, each delivered in a leather travel pouch
Swiss retail price
CHF 2,300
Available from
August 2021
