Matt, Wizzid and the Raider Sea Sky

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Matt, Wizzid and the Raider Sea Sky - Favre-Leuba
1 minute read
Adrenaline-filled Favre-Leuba teams up with the pioneer of search and rescue dog teams in New Zealand.

True to its pioneering spirit, Favre-Leuba has succeeded in taking the brand to parts that other watchmakers find hard to reach. And in doing so it is, in a way, supporting the export of tried-and-trusted methods from Switzerland.

The more we seek adventure, the more we expose ourselves to risks. And when we look to backcountry and off-piste skiing, the main risk we face is an avalanche. One minute we can be carving through virgin powder, the next we might see the floor slip away from underneath us at least twice as fast as the speeds we would ever hope to reach on skis. The worst-case scenario is being buried under the shifting mass of snow.

When the worst comes to the worst, search and rescue (SAR) teams are alerted to look for missing skiers. It is a race against time, so anything that can shorten the odds in favour of finding lost skiers is welcome. This is what led Matt Gunn, an avalanche patrol and rescue professional at the Treble Cone ski field, located just outside of Wanaka in New Zealand, to found the Aspiring Avalanche Dogs rescue team. Matt was the first person to form a human/canine search team at the Treble Cone ski resort in the early 2000s.

Matt, Wizzid and the Raider Sea Sky

The latest addition to his team is the robust Favre-Leuba Raider Sea Sky chronograph – the perfect timepiece for hostile terrain. It accompanies Matt and his newly-trained puppy Wizzid on all training and rescue missions in the resort. “I’ve never seen a transceiver searcher beat a dog in a one-on-one race,” he says, “they’re just so quick”. This is because a dog has a sense of smell that is 40 times more sensitive than that of a human and it can cover the same ground as 20-30 human searchers.

For Favre-Leuba, the association is perfect, with the rugged mountaineer and the cute rescue dog (which looks even cuter when wearing bespoke doggie goggles!) perfectly complementing the colourful Raider Sea Sky. It also helps the non-profit organisation, which relies on charity donations in order to protect skiers in the region.

Matt, Wizzid and the Raider Sea Sky

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