Accurate measuring as we know it today was born on aboard ship: or, to be more precise, aboard vessels voyaging on the high seas.

Before the dawn of satellite-assisted navigation, highly accurate clocks were the only instruments which could enable a mariner to exactly determine his position at sea.

This is reason enough for Montblanc to devote its efforts to this theme and to devise innovative ideas that refresh watch lovers’ memories about this important tradition.

For IWC, 2012 will be all about its “Pilot’s watch” collection, following 2011 being the year of the Portofino.

Here is the new IWC Pilot’s Watch Chronograph “Top Gun Miramar” edition, one of five new Pilot’s watches we can expect to see from IWC for 2012.

The IWC Top Gun Miramar watch is a tribute to the place in California where the myth of the elite pilot (the “Top Gun”) was born.

The flagship watch for the Cartier Fine Watchmaking collection at SIHH 2012 is the magnificent Rotonde de Cartier Minute Repeater Flying Tourbillon watch.

Since its launch in 1931, the Jaeger-LeCoutlre Reverso has taken many forms, including different movements and hundreds of dials — in a variety of colors.

A beautiful dark red lacquered dial adorns this new Reverso from Jaeger-LeCoultre, the Grande Reverso 1931 Rouge.

The Grande Reverso 1931 Rouge reinterprets the red dials of the 1930s, a color which at the time was a definitive mark of individuality upon one’s wrist.

For each of the past few years at the SIHH show in Geneva, Cartier has unveiled a “grande complication” wristwatch featuring a tourbillon, perpetual calendar and monopusher chronograph.

This year, Cartier has drawn inspiration from Cartier pocket watches produced in the 1930′s to produce the eye-catching piece you see here.

The watch is crafted in white gold, with skeletonized Roman numerals, something that we have also seen the past few years in some of Cartier’s higher end pieces.

Here’s a first look at the Baume & Mercier Capeland Flyback Chronograph that will be officially unveiled January 2012 in Geneva.

This watch is a new color-variation on the same model introduced at SIHH 2011 (see the 2011, white dial Capeland Flyback Chrono here).