Rolex discontinued the Yacht-Master II in 2024, announced the return last week in its Oyster Story press package, and has now released the full specifications and pricing on the closing day of Watches and Wonders. The new-generation references are 126680 in Oystersteel and 126688 in 18-karat yellow gold. The 44mm case, 100-metre water resistance, and programmable regatta complication all carry over from the 2007 line. Almost everything else has been rebuilt.
The most visible change is the bezel. The old ring-command system, which coupled the rotating ceramic bezel to the movement so that sailors could program the countdown by turning it, is gone. The countdown is now set entirely through the two case pushers. With the functional link broken, Rolex could do something it could not do before: print a plain 60-minute scale onto the Cerachrom insert, as Monochrome Watches notes in its introduction. The bezel looks, for the first time, like a conventional dive-adjacent timing bezel rather than a regatta-specific control surface. The result is that the watch reads faster at a glance, which is the whole point of a regatta start.
What the hands do now
The countdown hand is red. The central sweep second and the regatta minutes are arranged so that, once the countdown is running, the red needle sweeps counterclockwise toward zero. WatchTime's deep-dive on the new reference describes the display as optimised for the start sequence specifically: the sailor glances once, sees how much time is left, and tightens the next mark. There is no longer a bezel index to align with, which removes an entire step from the workflow. The regatta indicator at the upper half of the dial remains, now with a cleaner applied triangle marker.
The matte white lacquer dial is new. Applied hour markers are 18-karat white gold on the steel reference and yellow gold on the gold reference, and both fill with Chromalight lume. The hands, as Fratello notes in its hands-on, have been redrawn with sharper tips and a longer body than the outgoing 116680. The overall impression is of a dial that does more with fewer graphic elements.
Calibre 4162
The new movement is Calibre 4162. It replaces Calibre 4161, which itself was a variant of the Daytona's 4130 architecture adapted for the regatta function. The 4162 keeps the column wheel and vertical clutch layout but adds the Chronergy escapement, according to Fratello's technical notes. Power reserve climbs from 72 hours as on the previous generation to a stated 72 hours on the new one, with Time and Watches reporting the same figure. The precision tolerance is Rolex's Superlative Chronometer spec of negative two to positive two seconds per day.
The mechanical memory function, which lets the sailor pre-program the countdown length between one and ten minutes, is still there. So is on-the-fly synchronisation, which lets a sailor resync the countdown with the committee's signal at the start without resetting. These are the features that made the original Yacht-Master II useful to anyone actually running a start sequence, and Rolex has kept them intact.
What changed at the case
The 44mm case measures 13.90mm thick, unchanged from the outgoing reference. The crown guards have been reshaped slightly to integrate more cleanly with the pushers, which now carry the workflow. The Oyster bracelet uses the Oysterlock clasp with the Easylink 5mm extension in both steel and yellow gold. Water resistance stays at 100 metres.
The gold reference, 126688, gets the same white dial and blue bezel combination. Yellow gold was not available on the outgoing 116680 (that model offered a Rolesium variant with platinum bezel, along with Everose and yellow gold cases in earlier generations). Restricting the new launch to steel and yellow gold keeps the lineup focused.
Pricing
The steel reference 126680 retails at 19,850 euros, 20,300 US dollars, or 18,100 Swiss francs. The yellow gold 126688 retails at 56,700 euros, 57,800 US dollars, or 51,500 Swiss francs. Those figures were confirmed in Monochrome's introduction and Time and Watches' press release writeup.
For context, the 2007 Yacht-Master II 116680 retailed at roughly 18,500 Swiss francs at its final list price before discontinuation, so the Swiss price on the new steel reference is a modest uplift for a fully new movement and dial. Secondary market pricing on the outgoing 116680 softened through 2024 and 2025 after the discontinuation announcement, and authorised dealers we spoke to expect the new 126680 to track retail more closely given the updated movement.
The line
Rolex has now done three things to its sport-chronograph lineup in eighteen months: killed the Pepsi GMT 126710BLRO, refreshed the Daytona with a Rolesium-cased 126502, and rebuilt the Yacht-Master II. The Yacht-Master II was always the least-understood of the three, sold in small enough volume that authorised dealers often used it as a goodwill allocation for long-waiting clients on other references. With a cleaner bezel, a simpler countdown interface, and a new movement, the new 126680 may find a wider audience than its predecessor did.
Whether that audience includes actual sailors is a separate question. The watch remains, fundamentally, a tool for the start of a yacht race. Almost none of them will be used that way. But the feature is no longer working against the design, which is the quietest kind of correction a brand can make.
Sources: Monochrome Watches introduction to references 126680 and 126688; WatchTime's deep-dive on the Calibre 4162 and the redesigned regatta timer; Fratello's hands-on introduction; Time and Watches press coverage; Rolex official new-watch page.
