If you’re in London on Saturday 21 October, clear your diary: the British Horological Institute is inviting you to spend the day with the world’s authorities on navigational and military watches. This is a rare opportunity to undergo an immersion course in the subject of some of the most coveted timepieces in collectors’ circles.

Filling the day are the following presentations:

• David Boettcher – The Earliest British Military Wristwatches
• Kurt Brøndum – Collecting Breitling Navitimers – in Pursuit of Perfect Vintage Watches
• James Dowling – Wristwatch Navigation, from Weems to the Mark 11
• Owen Gilchrist – On the Bench: Finer Points of the Smiths Military Movement
• Rory McEvoy – On the Bench with Larcum Kendall’s K1 –  a special video presentation
• David Read – From Marine Chronometer to Military Navigation by Wristwatch
• Inge Solheim – Polar Exploration – A Perspective from the Wrist
• Adrian van der Meijden – IWC Mark 11 Wristwatches used by the B.O.A.C.

The conference doors open at 10am, with welcome drinks and pastries, and starts at 10.30am, concluding around 15.30. Lunch aboard and other refreshments are included in the ticket price. The venue is the beautiful HQS Wellington, an ex-Royal Navy ship moored on the River Thames in central London. Built in 1936, serving over 240,000 miles as a convoy escort in WWII. It is now the headquarters of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners, and has dedicated meeting and hospitality facilities aboard.

Move quickly, as spaces will be limited – few are the occasions when watch enthusiasts get to meet with the BHI beyond their headquarters at Upton Hall. Tickets are £35 for BHI members and £47 for non-members. And if you can’t tear yourself away, the event will carry on into the evening, for any who wish to join a party for drinks and further discussions into the wee hours.

bhi.co.uk/lsaconference/