Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore 'The Beast' Ref. 25721ST

It began with a name

The Royal Oak Offshore started as a request from Germany. In an internal memo dated February 2, 1989, Audemars Piguet's co-chief executive Stephen Urquhart wrote that Dierk Wettengel, who had run the brand's German market for 20 years, wanted 'a leading piece for the 1990s' inspired by 'the whole cigarette/offshore idea.' Wettengel meant the Cigarette racing powerboats that symbolized the decade and appeared on Miami Vice. Audemars Piguet was already deep in that world: its own Offshore team won the 6-liter category of the World Offshore Racing Championship in Italy on September 6, 1986, and the brand sponsored a Monaco-to-Saint-Tropez powerboat race the same year.

Unusually for the brand, the name came before the watch. Urquhart's memo said the company should check whether 'offshore' was registered and claim it if not. Audemars Piguet registered the trademark on February 22, 1989, before anyone had drawn a design.

The 20th anniversary of the Royal Oak was approaching in 1992, and management saw a chance to make Gérald Genta's 1972 icon young and controversial again. By 1989 the Royal Oak family already included 129 models, 86 of them quartz.

Emmanuel Gueit and the 'murderer' scene

Urquhart gave the project to Emmanuel Gueit, who had joined the brand's Geneva design studio on June 1, 1987, and worked alongside designer Jacqueline Dimier. Gueit was 22. His father, Jean-Claude Gueit, designed Piaget's Polo collection. In a 2016 interview Gueit explained the idea: women were starting to buy men's watches, he said, 'so I enlarged the Royal Oak, magnified the details and made it ultra-virile.'

His first six gouache studies are dated April 19, 1989, the last day of that year's Basel Fair. They already show the essentials: a 42mm case, a thick visible gasket, rubber-clad crown and links with rounded edges, plus a compass on the dial. In September 1989, Jacques Piguet, head of the movement maker Frédéric Piguet, suggested a chronograph instead, the first sporting complication ever proposed for a Royal Oak. The compass was dropped.

The size frightened people. The largest men's Royal Oak then measured 36mm across and 7.7mm thick; the Offshore would be 42mm and 14.05mm, about two and a half times the volume. Urquhart reportedly said, 'Wow, that's big!' Gueit later said he was told to stop the project every six months and kept developing it in secret, until Urquhart relented: 'OK, we'll do it to make you happy.'

Genta was not consulted and did not approve. In a 2015 interview Gueit recalled Genta storming onto the brand's stand at the 1993 fair: 'You have spoilt my watch, you're a murderer!' In 2011 Genta said he had been 'hopping mad' and called the Offshore a 'sea elephant.'

Basel, April 1993

The watch missed the 1992 anniversary. The case proved hard to make: the first five cases from the Geneva maker Centror did not pass water-resistance testing until September 1993, the bracelet maker Gay Frères began its final plans only in March 1993, and work on the rubber coating for the crown and pushers was still going on in July 1993.

Three prototypes were shown, almost quietly, at the Basel Fair held April 22 to 29, 1993. Agents and retailers called it a faux pas or a sacrilege, and the trade dubbed it 'the Beast.' It cost CHF 16,600, twice the price of a steel Royal Oak 14790. Younger buyers, often the sons of those same retailers, saw it differently: as a cool, unapologetic luxury watch that did not look like their fathers'.

Underneath the provocation was serious engineering. It was one of the very few chronographs of its day rated to 100 meters, sealed by an oversized gasket squeezed between bezel and case and by silver gaskets around the eight screws. A soft iron cage protected the movement; a January 1994 report measured its resistance at 300 oersteds, five times the ISO standard. The crown and pushers were coated in Therban, a heat- and abrasion-resistant rubber. It shipped in an octagonal box with a porthole in the lid.

A slow start, then the Offshore era

Sales started slowly. Only 61 were delivered in 1993, the first on November 25. The brand's archive counts 716 in the first three years (1993 to 1995), just 1.6 percent of its watch sales, against 1,652 Royal Oak 5402s delivered in 1972 to 1974. Italy took nearly a quarter of early sales and soon ran short, enough that a March 1994 advertisement asked customers there to be patient. The Italian distributor Franco Ziviani, pressed in Rome about the size, replied that a man with his arm out the window of a Ferrari would make all the difference. From 1997 the ski champion Alberto Tomba wore one.

The first 100 steel watches had only 'Royal Oak' engraved on the caseback, and in the brand's view this probably protected the Offshore trademark in case the watch failed. The full 'Royal Oak Offshore' engraving starts at number 100 or 101. Caseback plans were changed on November 23, 1993, and fully signed watches went on sale from January 1994.

The 25721 grew into a family: yellow gold and two-tone in 1995; platinum in 1997, at 429 grams the heaviest watch the brand had made; titanium from 1998. A single blackened-steel 25721SN, probably made to test the coating for the 1999 'End of Days' edition, entered the Audemars Piguet Museum in 2000 and was stolen ten years later. It has not been seen since.

The archive records the steel 25721ST on sale for 23 years, with 7,308 delivered from 1993 to 2016, beating the 6,050 of the original Royal Oak 5402. Including every material, 10,896 were delivered. The reference left the catalog in 2011, succeeded by the 26170 with an in-house-based Calibre 3126/2840. By 2010 the Offshore line as a whole sold 14,011 watches a year, against 8,081 Royal Oaks by the brand's count (another account gives 8,019).

How to read an early Beast

The earliest pieces are the ones to look for. One guide gives the unmarked first 100 as cases D23744 to D23843; the brand's own No. 32, sold in Italy on December 13, 1993, is case D23775, which fits that range. The first 500 or so came on a bracelet with a double-folding 'blade' clasp, and the links were secured by two screws per side. The original box had a glass porthole; later boxes have a solid top.

Dials changed over the run. Early watches carry D-series and later E-series dials, which were used between 1993 and 1999. The first 1,000 or so had a tighter tapestry and a blue paint that can fade to show the brass underneath. E-series dials lean toward purple. Sources disagree on what came next: one says steel 25721ST watches got more stable F-series dials from 1999 to about 2003, while a pricing guide says it had found no 25721ST with an F-series dial. The crown and pushers should be dark blue Therban; black rubber usually means a later replacement.

Dimensions also vary between sources. The brand's archive gives 14.05mm thick; one independent guide says 15mm and another says about 16mm, a figure close to Gueit's original sketches. Accounts of the movement also differ: the brand traces Calibre 2126 to the Jaeger-LeCoultre 889 family, while two guides call the base a Calibre 888.

The watch that made big watches

Audemars Piguet's archive is plain about the result: the Offshore 'led the entire watch industry into the oversized watch market.' Across the industry, average case sizes grew. Within the brand, the 36mm Royal Oak 14790 gave way to a 39mm model in 2003 and a 41mm model in 2012.

It also changed how a luxury watch brand did business. A 1997 visit to Le Brassus by Arnold Schwarzenegger, shown around by a young salesman named François-Henry Bennahmias, led to the 1999 'End of Days' edition, sold to benefit the actor's Inner City Games Foundation. Partnerships with athletes, musicians and cities followed. Between 2000 and 2010 the brand created 135 Offshore models, against about 20 in the 1990s, and Bennahmias went on to run the company from 2012.

The original is still being reissued. In 2018, for the Offshore's 25th anniversary, the brand released the 26237ST, a near one-for-one re-edition priced at CHF 25,000. In 2023, for the 30th, it made its first all-ceramic Offshore. The archive's own summary pairs the two founding watches: the Royal Oak created the sport-chic steel watch, and the Offshore created the oversized luxury watch.

The numbers

Reference

25721ST (steel); also BA yellow gold, SA steel and yellow gold, SR steel and pink gold, BC white gold, PT platinum, TI titanium, SN blackened steel

Caliber

Self-winding chronograph 2126/2840, later 2226/2840 and 2326/2840: Jaeger-LeCoultre base, Dubois Dépraz chronograph module, 6.15mm thick

Case

42mm stainless steel, 14.05mm per the brand (other sources say 15-16mm), 100m, soft iron anti-magnetic cage, Therban-coated crown and pushers

Weight

About 220 g steel; about 150 g titanium; 429 g platinum per the brand's archive

Launch price

CHF 16,600 (1993)

Steel production

7,308 delivered 1993-2016 (61 in 1993; peak 969 in 2006)

All materials

10,896 delivered 1993-2016: steel 7,308, titanium 2,914 (one table says 2,902), yellow gold 589, two-tone 64 plus one pink gold, white gold 21, platinum 10, blackened steel 1

In the catalog

1993 to 2011, succeeded by the 26170

Timeline

1. Sep 6, 1986

   The Audemars Piguet Offshore powerboat team wins the 6-liter category of the World Offshore Racing Championship in Italy.

2. Jun 1, 1987

   Emmanuel Gueit joins Audemars Piguet's design department.

3. Feb 2, 1989

   Stephen Urquhart's memo relays the German market's request for an 'offshore'-inspired watch for the 1990s.

4. Feb 22, 1989

   The 'Offshore' trademark is registered, before any design exists.

5. Apr 19, 1989

   Gueit paints the first six Offshore studies on the last day of the Basel Fair.

6. Sep 1989

   Frédéric Piguet proposes a chronograph in place of the compass.

7. Sep 19, 1991

   Gueit draws three new versions on metal bracelets; the project is approved.

8. Apr 22, 1993

   The Basel Fair opens; three prototypes of the 25721 are shown and dubbed 'the Beast.'

9. Sep 1993

   The first five cases pass water-resistance testing.

10. Nov 23, 1993

    Caseback plans are changed to add 'Offshore'; the first 100 carry only 'Royal Oak.'

11. Nov 25, 1993

    First deliveries; 61 watches are delivered in 1993.

12. Mar 1994

    An advertisement in Italy asks customers to wait patiently for their Offshore.

13. 1995

    Yellow gold 25721BA and two-tone 25721SA versions appear.

14. 1997

    Platinum 25721PT, at 429 grams, becomes the heaviest watch the brand has made.

15. 1998

    Titanium 25721TI arrives, about 150 grams, at the SIHH.

16. 1999

    The 'End of Days' edition with Arnold Schwarzenegger begins the Offshore's run of limited editions.

17. 2011

    Model 25721 leaves the catalog, succeeded by the 26170.

18. 2016

    The last two steel 25721ST watches are delivered, bringing the total to 7,308.

19. Nov 10, 2018

    Gueit's own No. 39, from the unmarked first 100, sells at auction in Geneva for CHF 102,500.

20. Nov 6, 2020

    Platinum 25721PT No. 7 sells at auction in Geneva for CHF 422,100.

21. May 2024

    Platinum 25721PT No. 001 sells at auction in Geneva for CHF 190,500.

22. Apr 2026

    An E-series steel 25721ST from about 1994 sells online at auction in New York for $21,590.

The world in 1992

• 1992

  The military-derived Hummer reaches the civilian market, a parallel the brand's archive draws to the Offshore.

• Jan 20, 1993

  Bill Clinton and Al Gore are inaugurated as US President and Vice President.

• Feb 26, 1993

  A van bomb explodes below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York, killing six.

• Apr 19, 1993

  The 51-day siege at Waco, Texas, ends in a fire, three days before the Basel Fair opens.

• May 24, 1993

  Eritrea gains independence from Ethiopia.

• Jun 11, 1993

  Jurassic Park opens in US cinemas.

• Nov 1, 1993

  The Maastricht Treaty takes effect, formally establishing the European Union.

• Dec 8, 1993

  President Clinton signs the North American Free Trade Agreement into law.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore 'The Beast' Ref. 25721ST is number 64 of 100 in the watches entries of the FLOAT 100. 54 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (46 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The name came first: Audemars Piguet registered 'Offshore' as a trademark on February 22, 1989, before a single sketch existed.
• Gueit's first designs had a compass on the dial; it was swapped for a chronograph after a movement maker suggested it in September 1989.
• The yellow gold version weighed almost 400 grams and was nicknamed 'the Pounder' in the US; the platinum one beat it at 429 grams.
• The only blackened-steel 25721 ever recorded was stolen from the Audemars Piguet Museum in 2010 and has not been seen since.
• It took five years to sell the first 1,000 steel Offshores; by 2006 the brand was selling almost 1,000 a year.
• Gérald Genta, who designed the Royal Oak, called the Offshore a 'sea elephant.'
• Gueit says the CEO handed him his No. 39 straight from a watchmaker's bench, which is why it came without box or papers.