Hands-On Review
Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 Review
Forty-four millimeters of white gold and platinum, weighed, worn, and evaluated. Our hands-on verdict on the heaviest regatta chronograph Rolex ever built.
Shop Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689THE FIRST LOOK
Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 First Impressions
What hits you the moment you pick up the 116689.
The Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 announces itself through your hand before your eyes catch up. We handle a lot of Rolex watches in a given week, and nothing in the catalog lands in the palm like this one. Photographs of the 116689 flatten it into just another big white-dialed sports watch. In person it is a dense white metal slab, roughly 235 grams before sizing, and the weight arrives with a specific quality: not the lively heft of a steel sports watch, but the inert, banked density of solid 18k white gold with a solid 950 platinum ring bolted to the top of it.
The second impression is that this watch is far more restrained than its reputation suggests. The 116689 was the quiet one of the four Yacht-Master II references. There is no ceramic bezel, no color contrast, no two-tone flash. It reads almost entirely as one continuous silver-white object, and the only real color on the watch is the red countdown arrow and the small blue segments on the dial. Across a room, most people will not clock it as a precious metal Rolex at all. That is the whole point of it, and it is the reason a certain kind of collector spent nearly fifty thousand dollars on one.
THE WEARING EXPERIENCE
On the Wrist
How the 116689 actually wears, day in and day out.
Quick Specs
The Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 wears exactly as large as its numbers promise, and the weight is what defines the experience rather than the diameter. At 44mm across with roughly 52mm lug-to-lug, the case needs a 7-inch wrist as a genuine floor, not a suggestion. Below that, the lugs overhang and the watch begins to pivot. The more instructive number is the mass. A full-length example lands near 235 grams and typically settles somewhere between 200 and 215 grams after sizing, which is roughly double what a steel Rolex Yacht-Master II 116680 puts on your wrist.
That mass changes how you live with the watch. The bracelet has to be sized tighter than you would normally wear a Rolex, because any slack lets the head migrate to the underside of your wrist within an hour. Sized correctly, it is genuinely comfortable for a few hours, and the flat caseback distributes the load better than the numbers suggest. Push past a full day and the fatigue is real. Cuff clearance is the other honest problem: at roughly 14.7mm thick with the countdown pushers protruding, a slim dress cuff will not pass over it cleanly. This is a watch that goes on over an open collar and a rolled sleeve, and it never fully disappears under tailoring.
SHOP THIS WATCH
Shop the Yacht-Master II
Browse authenticated Rolex Yacht-Master II watches available now at WatchGuys.
If the weight and the wrist presence sound like a match rather than a warning, here is what we currently have available. Every piece is inspected by our in-house watchmakers and backed by the WatchGuys 2 Year Warranty.
BUILD QUALITY
Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 Specifications
Breaking down the 116689 from every angle: case, dial and bezel, bracelet.
Case
The Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 uses a 44mm Oyster case in solid 18k white gold, and the finishing follows the standard Rolex sports formula: brushed top surfaces on the lugs and case flanks, high polish on the chamfers and the crown guards. What is different here is how white gold takes that finish. It reads softer and warmer than Oystersteel under warm light, and the polished bevels throw a rounder, less clinical highlight. It also scratches more readily, which matters enormously on the pre-owned market and is the single thing we inspect hardest on this reference.
The screw-down Triplock crown sits between two chronograph pushers, and the operation is where the 116689 feels different from every other Rolex. The pushers are large, deliberate, and require real pressure. There is no light, hair-trigger chronograph feel here. The caseback is solid and screw-down in matching white gold, so there is no view of the movement, and water resistance is rated to 100 meters. That figure is worth naming honestly: this is a nautical watch that will survive a splash on deck, not a dive watch.
Dial and Bezel
The 116689 dial is the same white lacquered face used across the Yacht-Master II lineup, but the reference is split into two visual generations that materially affect what you should pay. Pre-2017 examples wear polished baton stick hands and square applied markers. From 2017 onward, Rolex fitted Mercedes hands, a triangular marker at 12, and a rectangular marker at 6. Most buyers prefer the Mercedes configuration for legibility and for looking unmistakably like a Rolex. Purists chase the early stick-hand examples precisely because they do not. Chromalight fills the markers and hands, and it glows blue and holds a genuinely long charge.
The bezel is the whole story of this reference. It is solid 950 platinum, and it is the only Yacht-Master II fitted with one, since the 116680, 116681, and 116688 all use blue Cerachrom ceramic instead. Platinum is a strange choice for a bezel: it is soft, it is heavy, and it dulls into a satiny patina rather than staying bright. But the bezel here is not decorative. It is the Ring Command bezel, and it physically unscrews and rotates to mechanically engage the movement, which is why it had to be metal rather than ceramic in the precious metal launch references. The engraved countdown graduations are cut into the platinum and filled with black, and the contrast stays crisp.
Bracelet
The 116689 comes on a three-piece-link Oyster bracelet in solid 18k white gold, with polished center links, an Oysterlock safety clasp, and the Easylink 5mm comfort extension. The construction is fully solid, the end links are tight, and the articulation is smooth. The Easylink is more useful on this reference than on almost any other Rolex, because the sheer mass of the head means a hot day and a swollen wrist turns a well-fitted bracelet into a tourniquet, and the 5mm of on-the-fly give is a real rescue.
The honest weakness is stretch. Solid gold links wear against each other faster than steel links do, and on a watch this heavy, that wear accumulates. On a 116689 that has seen regular wrist time, expect to find some play between the links. It is not a defect and it does not affect function, but it does affect value and it is largely irreversible without replacing links at gold prices. This is a bracelet to inspect with your hands, not from photographs.
What to Check on a Pre-Owned 116689
"Three things, in this order. First, the lugs. White gold is soft and a heavy watch gets bumped, so a 116689 that has been polished aggressively will have rounded lug edges and a lost bevel line. You cannot put that gold back. Second, the bezel. Unscrew it, rotate it, feel for that click into the movement. If it feels vague or gritty, walk away, because that is not a cheap repair. Third, the bracelet stretch. Hold the watch by the clasp and let the bracelet hang, then run it through your fingers. Solid gold links on a 235-gram watch stretch, and buyers almost never check for it."
Want This Reference Inspected Before You Commit?
Send us photos of any Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 you are considering, from us or anywhere else, and our watchmakers will tell you what they see in the lugs, the bezel, and the bracelet.
Call Us Text UsUNDER THE HOOD
Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 Movement Review
How the movement performs where it matters: on the wrist, every day.
The Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 launched in 2007 running the Caliber 4160, and this is the detail the aggregator sites consistently get wrong. Later production 116689 examples run the revised Caliber 4161, which Rolex introduced in 2013 alongside the steel reference and which improved pusher operation and reliability. Both movements descend from the Caliber 4130 that powers the Rolex Daytona, retooled for regatta timing: a traversing column wheel, a vertical clutch, a flyback function, and a programmable countdown with mechanical memory built on top. It runs at 4Hz with a 72-hour power reserve, and it carries roughly 360 components, making it the most complicated movement Rolex has ever put into series production.
In daily use, it behaves exactly like a Rolex is supposed to. Our examples run comfortably inside Superlative Chronometer tolerance, which in practice means you check the time against your phone once a month out of curiosity and find nothing worth adjusting. The vertical clutch means the chronograph seconds hand starts without the twitch you get on a horizontally coupled chronograph. The winding is smooth, the rotor is quiet, and the 72 hours is real: take it off Friday evening and it is still running Monday morning. The one caution is service. This is not a Caliber 3235. There are more parts, fewer watchmakers who will confidently open it, and the platinum bezel adds handling risk. Budget meaningfully above a standard Rolex sports service, and use someone who has actually seen a 4160 or 4161 before.
The Caliber Question Most 116689 Buyers Never Ask
"Ask the seller which caliber is in the watch and watch what happens. Most of them do not know, and half the listings online say 4161 on a watch that is plainly a 2008 piece running a 4160. It is not a dealbreaker either way. Both movements are excellent and both hold time. But a seller who cannot tell you what is inside the case has not opened it, and that tells you how much else they have not checked. Serial and production year will get you to the answer."
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Sign Up for Our NewsletterTHE REGATTA COMPLICATION
Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 Countdown in Use
What the Ring Command bezel and programmable countdown actually feel like to operate.
The Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 exists to solve one problem: a sailing race does not start when you cross the line, it starts when a gun fires and a countdown begins, and that countdown is frequently reset. To set it, you unscrew the Ring Command bezel and rotate it ninety degrees, which mechanically disengages the chronograph and hands control of the countdown to the crown. You then dial the countdown to anywhere from one to ten minutes, screw the bezel back down, and the movement holds that duration in a mechanical memory. Press the pusher and it counts down. Press it again mid-count and it flies back to your programmed start and runs again. No electronics, no reprogramming, just a wheel remembering a number.
The operation is tactile in a way nothing else in the Rolex catalog is. The bezel unscrews with a firm, deliberate resistance and lands into its command position with an unmistakable mechanical bite. You can feel the movement engaging through the case. The pushers require conviction. Honest assessment: virtually nobody who buys a 116689 will ever start a regatta with it, and Rolex almost certainly knew that. The complication is not really being sold as a tool. It is being sold as a piece of mechanical theater that you can perform on your own wrist, and on that basis it is one of the most satisfying things Rolex has ever engineered.
Not Sure the 116689 Is the Right One?
Our specialists can walk you through the differences between the white gold, yellow gold, two-tone, and steel Yacht-Master II references and help you land on the right configuration.
Speak To a RepresentativeMARKET VALUE
Current Market Snapshot
What the 116689 costs right now on the secondary market.
Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 Market Price
Prices reflect complete sets (box, papers, warranty card). Watches without complete sets typically trade 5-15% lower.
The Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 currently trades roughly between $25,000 and $32,000 for a good example with box and papers, against a last retail price of $48,150. That is a discount of close to half on a watch built from solid white gold and solid platinum, and it is the most compelling number on this page. You are buying the intrinsic metal, the most complicated movement Rolex ever mass produced, and a permanently discontinued reference, for less than the current retail of a gold Rolex Daytona 126508. Few things in the modern Rolex market present that arithmetic.
The trend has firmed. The 116689 was down over a five-year horizon but has climbed on a one-year basis, and the reason is straightforward supply mechanics: Rolex quietly dropped this reference before the rest of the lineup, then retired the entire Yacht-Master II collection at Watches and Wonders 2024. When Rolex returned to the regatta chronograph in 2026 with revised steel and yellow gold references, it did not bring back a white gold and platinum version. The 116689 is now a closed set with no successor, and closed sets with unrepeatable complications do not get cheaper over long horizons. Box and papers matter more than usual here, because completeness on a discontinued precious metal reference is what separates a $25,000 example from a $32,000 one.
Why the Scrap Value Floor Matters on the 116689
"This is the only Rolex conversation where I bring up metal weight, and I bring it up because it is genuinely relevant. You have north of 200 grams of 18k white gold plus a solid platinum bezel on this watch. That does not mean anybody is melting a 116689, and nobody should. It means there is a hard floor under it that a steel sports watch does not have. When people ask me whether a discontinued reference can fall apart in value, the 116689 is the one I point at and say: not this one, not from here."
HEAD TO HEAD
How It Compares
The 116689 against the alternatives buyers actually cross-shop.
Rolex 116689 vs. Rolex Yacht-Master II 116688 (Yellow Gold)
This is the real decision, and it comes down to whether you want the watch to be seen. The Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 is white gold with a platinum bezel and it reads as silver-white, quiet, and easily mistaken for steel. The Rolex Yacht-Master II 116688 is solid yellow gold with a blue Cerachrom bezel, and it reads as gold from thirty feet away. The 116688 is the more conventionally desirable watch and trades $8,000 to $10,000 higher for it, and it will always find a buyer faster. The 116689 is the connoisseur's version, cheaper, heavier, and understood only by people who know what they are looking at. Choose the 116688 if you want a gold Rolex. Choose the 116689 if you want a platinum bezel and do not care whether anybody notices.
"I have sold both, and the 116688 moves faster every single time. That is exactly why I would keep the 116689. The market is paying a ten-thousand-dollar premium for yellow gold to be visible, and it is paying nothing for a solid platinum bezel that is objectively rarer within this lineup. The 116689 is the only Yacht-Master II with platinum on it. When this collection is fully understood ten years from now, that will not be a footnote."
| Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 | Rolex Yacht-Master II 116688 | |
|---|---|---|
| Case Material | 18k white gold | 18k yellow gold |
| Bezel Material | 950 platinum | Blue Cerachrom ceramic |
| Visual Read | Reads as steel from a distance | Unmistakably gold |
| Approx. Weight | ~235g full | ~230g full |
| Secondary Market Price | $25,000 - $32,000 | $33,000 - $40,000 |
| Liquidity | Slower to sell | Faster to sell |
| Production | Discontinued | Discontinued (2024) |
Rolex 116689 vs. Rolex Yacht-Master II 116681 (Everose Rolesor)
A different kind of buyer entirely. The Rolex Yacht-Master II 116681 is Oystersteel with Everose gold accents and a blue Cerachrom bezel, and it trades in the $19,000 to $23,000 range, meaningfully below the 116689. It is also considerably lighter, more wearable day to day, and easier to justify as a watch you will actually put on. What it is not is precious metal. The steel case means it will scratch and buff back to life indefinitely, but it also means no intrinsic material floor and no platinum. If your priority is wearing a Yacht-Master II regularly, the 116681 is the smarter buy and we will tell you so. If your priority is owning the most substantial version of the complication, the 116689 is not really in competition with it.
| Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 | Rolex Yacht-Master II 116681 | |
|---|---|---|
| Case Material | 18k white gold | Oystersteel and 18k Everose gold |
| Bezel Material | 950 platinum | Blue Cerachrom ceramic |
| Approx. Weight | ~235g full | ~155g full |
| Daily Wearability | Occasional wear | Genuinely daily wearable |
| Scratch Recovery | Soft, polishing removes gold | Steel, buffs back easily |
| Secondary Market Price | $25,000 - $32,000 | $19,000 - $23,000 |
| Production | Discontinued | Discontinued (2024) |
Comparing 44mm Rolex References?
The Yacht-Master II shares its 44mm case size with only one other Rolex family. See how the two compare in the metal.
Shop 44mm Rolex WatchesTHE BOTTOM LINE
The Verdict
Is the 116689 worth your money?
Buy it, with one condition: buy it knowing it is a collector's watch and not a daily watch.
The Rolex Yacht-Master II 116689 is perfect for the buyer who already owns the watch they wear every day and now wants something with genuine mechanical substance behind it. If you are drawn to the Ring Command bezel, to a complication Rolex will never build again, and to solid platinum and white gold at roughly half of last retail, this is one of the best-priced propositions in the entire precious metal Rolex market right now. The rarity is real, the metal is real, and the movement is the most complicated thing the brand has ever series-produced.
Skip it if it would be your only Rolex, or if your wrist is under 7 inches. At 44mm and roughly 235 grams, this watch will punish you for treating it like a daily driver, and the 100 meters of water resistance means it is not the nautical tool the marketing implies. If you want a Yacht-Master II you will actually wear, buy the steel or the two-tone and spend the savings elsewhere. If you want a Rolex sports watch you can live in, the entire rest of the catalog is a better answer. The single strongest reason to buy the 116689 is this: it is the only Rolex ever made with a solid platinum Ring Command bezel, and the market has not yet priced that in.
"The 116689 is the most watch you can buy from Rolex for under thirty-five thousand dollars, and almost nobody knows it. Solid white gold, solid platinum, the hardest movement they ever built, gone from the catalog forever. Is it a lot of watch to wear? Yes. It is heavy and it is loud in the wrong way and you will not put it on Tuesday morning. But you are not buying it for Tuesday morning. You are buying it because Rolex will not make anything like this again, and right now the market is letting you have it for half of what it cost new."
