Rolex Yacht-Master Titanium Review: Their Most Underrated Sport Watch?

Before getting into the Rolex Yacht-Master Titanium here, we have to address the collection as a whole. The Rolex Yacht-Master is one of the most unsung in the brand’s catalog, with owners who either opted to be left-of-center relative to their other Crown-loving friends, or those who wandered into a watch store one day and said “I want a Rolex, and I’ll take what you got!” While the latter manifests itself on a daily basis and also accounts for the lion’s share of Sky-Dweller and two-tone Daytona purchases, the former has made the Yacht-Master something of a cult classic for those who don’t necessarily need to be submerged in water and would rather just be chilling beside it (with a lunch prepared below deck and a glass of dealers choice in hand).

One doesn’t need to be a literal yacht master to own a Yacht-Master. Heck, you don’t need to own a yacht or have a friend that owns one. Instead – at least traditionally – the Yacht-Master was for the ones who took things less seriously, who wanted a watch that toes the line between tool watch and…um, fancier tool watch. It was and still remains – also – for the one that burst through the boutique door without a clue what they're after so long as that coronet is on the dial. 

But the Yacht-Master has changed. In 2023, Rolex took what had typically been an at least partially precious watch and turned the toolish knobs way up. This is how we ended up with the Yacht-Master Titanium, 42mm of sports with a levity that was attributed to the first wearable titanium Rolex at scale (and I say wearable and at scale intentionally here). So today we will be reviewing that watch, but to understand how we got here, we must take a brief detour into the past and see just what makes a Yacht-Master a Yacht-Master.

[toc-section heading="The Yacht-Master Origin Story"]

Now the real origin story of the Yacht-Master is a little tricky because it involves a certain suspension of disbelief and an understanding that the past is riddled with Rolex "prototypes" that tend to make the brands history more confusing than add any clarity. I put that word in quotes because sometimes it is misused, and confused for scenarios where dials and cases have been paired together in an effort to show what a watch may have looked like if an abandoned kernel of a plan had been made into popcorn. [quote-media quote="The first version appeared in the 1960s by way of a Yacht-Master Daytona-style watch. It was a chronograph with a decidedly nautical theme." author="" image="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0278/9723/3501/files/Yachtmaster-Daytona_430x.jpg" caption="Image by Rolex Magazine" media="right"]The history of the Yacht-Master kind of falls into this category when you consider that the first version appeared in the 1960s by way of a Yacht-Master Daytona-style watch. It was a chronograph with a decidedly nautical theme. There are really only a couple known to have ever existed with owners the likes of John Goldberger and Eric Clapton. But it makes sense to basically erase this watch from your minds eye and fast forward to 1992 when the brand properly launched the Yacht-Master line, it’s first new watch since the Daytona some 3 decades earlier.[quote-media quote="The 1992 Yacht-Master was Rolex’s move toward a luxury aquatic watch as it was easier to take design codes from the Submariner and re-mold them under a new name than sully an icon and bear the ire of a passionate fanbase. " author="" image="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0278/9723/3501/files/Rolex-Yacht-Master-original-1992-2_9e4ff611-ea66-4cb9-b27b-feab21be9419_430x.jpg" caption="The very first Rolex Yacht-Master from 1992" media="left"]The 1992 Yacht-Master was Rolex’s move toward a luxury aquatic watch as it was easier to take design codes from the Submariner and re-mold them under a new name than sully an icon and bear the ire of a passionate fanbase. There was the initial yellow gold introduction which then led to a platinum and stainless steel watch with red accents and a specific monochromatic metal bezel. Soon came a mid-size 35mm option. Years went by and the brand saw fit to update the grey and red version to a blue and red version to then a grey and blue version. Then came in the introduction of the Everose option on Oysterflex which saw Rolex begin to work with matte ceramic for the bezel, leading to a white gold 42mm option on Oysterflex. This would be a harbinger of things to come.

[toc-section heading="Sir Ben Ainslee"][text-media heading="" text="In 2021 Sir Ben Ainslee was spotted wearing a non-production prototype (no quotes for this use) Yacht-Master which everyone surmised was titanium. One year later and the RLX Titanium Deepsea Challenge was released, a 50mm behemoth of a watch that represented Rolex’s first commercial use of titanium (a material Tudor has long been using)." image="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0278/9723/3501/files/close-up-yachtmaster_430x.jpg" caption="" media="right"] Now we are clear on the whole reason I brought up terms like “wearable” and “at scale” earlier in this piece. And that's because, despite the RLX Deepsea in 2022, the 2024 Yacht-Master titanium was the first truly commercially viable titanium launch in the brand’s history (and look, I get that everything Rolex makes it sells and I am sure every RLX Deepsea sold you but I digress).

[toc-section heading="Reviewing The Titanium Yacht-Master "]

So I got my first look at this watch at Watches and Wonders 2024 as it was unveiled during a meeting with Rolex. I remember waiting for it to get passed around the table, intrigued at the prospect of holding what many of us at the time deemed to be a return to a true tool watch for the brand. I mean we are talking light material, and a fancy-free matte ceramic bezel at a tool-watch-appropriate-by-modern-standards size of 42mm.

And to be honest, me and my slender 6.25 in. wrist were slightly disappointed when it came time to try it on. It wears larger than its diameter would suggest which tends to be typical of some Rolex sports watches these days. But that did not necessarily turn me off to the watch. I could still understand its importance to the broader watch world and to those who thought Rolex had left true sport in the dust.

So what we get with this watch is a 42mm case with an approximately 11.6mm case height and approximately 50.2mm lug to lug. This makes it relatively thin for this type of watch but also a tad long when it comes to wrist-wear. The dial aperture is large, meaning that when you look at this dial with its maxi markers, it has quite a large opening for a 42mm case which could account for its feeling of being a little larger than 42mm would indicate. And to my eyes, it feels markedly bigger than a Submariner which is only 1mm smaller.

But then there is the lightness which is a huge asset to this watch. Everyone has been begging for a titanium Submariner for years and the truth is that Rolex will rarely give the people exactly what they want but rather something close enough, and that something keeps us all wanting more (in a good way). Such is the case for the Yachtmaster Titanium. It gives you that darker sheen of metal with the proprietary RLX titanium material. But this is not a Sub, which is definitively showcased by the form of clasp used. Here we get the EasyLink extension instead of the GlideLock meaning its a snap-in, snap-out system allowing for 5mm of on-the-fly adjustment vs the sliding system of the GlideLock. For me, I actually prefer the EasyLink because it results in a far smaller, and shorter clasp which is more comfortable from a wear experience. 

The bezel insert is made from Rolex’s Cerachrom ceramic material with a matter base and glossy numerals. This pairs nicely against the grey-black matte-effect dial which is a callback to the matte dials of old, another nod to this watch’s toolier bona fides. For me, this is not a Submariner replacement, even if it gets close to playing in the same sandbox. At the end of the day the dial still reads “Yacht-Master” which may turn some folks off that don’t necessarily want to be associated with the yachting life.

It doesn’t bother me at all. Here you are getting a full-throated tool watch with 100m of water resistance, Rolex’s COSC 3235 caliber, and 70 hours of power reserve. It’s a very unique proposition from the brand and the sort of material innovation we rarely see.

[toc-section heading="Final Thoughts and Price"]

Do I wish this watch was 40mm instead of 42? I sure do, but I am also thrilled that it isn’t 50mm either. In the end, this will be as difficult to find a Rolex model as ever. I congratulated a friend of mine who recently picked one up, and I also fawned over one when a different took it off his wrist as a surprise to show me over dinner recently. That’s the power of Rolex watches. The special ones we don’t see that often and when they come around, the feel that much more special. The Rolex Yacht-Master Titanium is priced at $15,250. You can learn more about it over at rolex.com