Hidden depths
Blancpain celebrates its legacy in diving watches and ocean conservancy with the new Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Chronographe Flyback
Skill and discipline are paramount in watchmaking, but it is passion that elevates instruments into objects of renown. Founded in 1735 in the lush Jura mountains of Switzerland, Blancpain had been expanding the science and craft of haute horlogerie for over a century when Jean-Jacques Fiechter assumed the mantle of CEO in 1950.
Just a few years later, the Swiss Manufacture released one of its greatest icons, the Fifty Fathoms. Fiechter was an avid diver, equally at home in the ocean’s depths as he was at the watchmaking manufacture, and the prospect of marrying the two worlds thrilled him. This was no routine product development. A request from the French military was the spark he had been waiting for to ignite a project the likes of which had never been seen before: a modern diving watch of such precision and consistency that it could be relied upon for major military operations.
After World War II, two heroes of the Free French Forces, Captain Robert “Bob” Maloubier and Lieutenant Claude Riffaud, created what many considered to be its most select and covert group: combat divers. Their missions covered undersea intelligence gathering and acts of sabotage such as attacks at seaports or the destruction of ships, often under the cover of night. In addition to full diving equipment, the elite frogmen required certain instruments that could withstand the pressure of the watery depths, including a compass, a depth meter and a diving watch.
None of the existing timepieces were up to the task of timing each dive to avoid overstaying the supply of oxygen, and also aid in navigation underwater. Maloubier decided the instrument they needed would have to be built from scratch, tailored to fit their exacting requirements. He drew up a list of detailed specifications and farmed them out for bidding, but it was met with indifference, even coolness, by the industry. This was the era of aviation-inspired designs and the sea held little interest for the watchmaking world. One commercial director even remarked that such a timepiece “would have no future”, a comment he likely regretted till the end of his days.
Blancpain greeted the naval officers with far more enthusiasm, and Fiechter needed no convincing. His team sprang into action, envisioning a large black dial (a marked departure from the svelte trends at the time), bold numerals for inimitable legibility and a rotatable exterior bezel that recalled markings on the dial so they might “shine like a star for a shepherd”.
These ideas were countered and complemented by Fiechter’s own, such as ensuring the bezel rotated in just one direction to eliminate accidental adjustment that would falsely indicate a dive started later than it had. He suggested a screw-on caseback with an innovative O-ring system for absolute water resistance and a manual winding calibre to minimise wear and tear of the crown. Finally, he considered the impact of magnetic fields on timepieces in harsh, submerged combat conditions.
The result was the Fifty Fathoms, launched in 1953 as the world’s first — and still reigning — modern diving watch with impeccable water resistance, a robust crown protection system, clear luminescent markings, a unidirectional rotating bezel with timing markings, antimagnetic protection and a humidity indicator to alert the wearer to water compromise. It was named after the British measurement of 50 fathoms, or approximately 91.45m, then considered the maximum depth a diver could achieve with the oxygen mixture of the time.
A new generation
Today’s Fifty Fathoms collection is inspired by the first modern diving watch created by Blancpain in 1953, evolving with contemporary trends and technology. Following interpretations in black, meteor grey and blue, the new Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe
Chronographe Flyback is going green. Its natural hue enables it to blend into any environment, whether 50ft underwater or in 50th-floor conference rooms.
The DNA of its ancestors is visible in its robust aesthetics and remarkable performance. Its bezel, now in satin-brushed black ceramic with a green ceramic insert and Liquidmetal hour markers, is still unidirectional, proving the enduring wisdom of that early decision. Its movement, too, remains self-winding, only it is now the in-house Calibre F385 that powers a 5Hz chronograph that enables each second to be divided into 1/10th intervals. Such a high frequency enables increased accuracy, while a flyback function allows for the chronograph to reset to zero and instantaneously restart with the activation of the pusher at 4 o’clock on the case side.
A date window nestles between 4 and 5 o’clock, its digits as readable as the luminescent geometric markings around the dial.
Black ceramic, satin-brushed for finesse, gives the 43.6mm case extraordinary lightness and durability. Lustrous green creeps across the bezel and dial, the perfect colour achieved through several layers of nanometric material. It takes on different personalities depending on the angle from which it catches the light — now, the soft glow of sophistication; next, a metallic sheen. The overall shape and apertures are given their due before attention is turned to the dial, polished twice to remove scratches and then gentle its gleam.
Surfaces are then treated for texture, including an intricate sunburst effect on the dial and snailed detailing in the chronograph counters to create an impression of greater depth. This emphasis on surface finishing and texture continues across the manufacture calibre, visible through the sapphire crystal caseback. Straps in NATO or sail canvas comfortably fasten the watch onto the wrist while imparting a rugged aesthetic. The Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe Chronographe Flyback was designed as a versatile companion, able to escort the wearer 30,000ft up in the air or approximately 300m underwater.
A devotion to the ocean
French explorer, filmmaker and innovator Jacques Cousteau was an authority on the deep blue, pioneering the development of the first truly useable scuba air regulator that opened the door to modern scuba diving. When he learned of the then-revolutionary specifications of Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms, he selected it for use in the historic dives chronicled in The Silent World, the first documentary film to use underwater cinematography to show the ocean depths in colour. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the prestigious Palme d’Or at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.
And so began Blancpain’s legacy in ocean exploration and conservation, two endeavours it remains committed to through the Fifty Fathoms family. In the decades since its inception, the watchmaker has nurtured close ties with like-minded explorers, photographers, scientists and environmentalists in advocating the preservation of this precious resource. The Blancpain Ocean Commitment has steadily supported oceanographic initiatives and partnerships with leading organisations.
This includes the Pristine Seas expeditions headed by National Geographic Society’s explorer-in-residence, Dr Enric Sala. From 2011 to 2016, Sala, the founding partner, supported the exploration and protection of the few remaining unspoiled, wild ocean areas that ranged from Kiribati and Gabon to Costa Rica, Patagonia and northern Greenland, to raise awareness of these ecosystems and secure governmental and community support for their mission.
When The Economist organised the inaugural World Ocean Summit in 2012, Blancpain came on board as a sponsor. The manufacture was also behind Oceans, an underwater photographic exhibit at the United Nations headquarters in New York to celebrate World Oceans Day in 2013. Over 100,000 people visited to admire works by Edition Fifty Fathoms photographers, as well as visuals from the Pristine Seas and Gombessa expeditions, paving the way for an annual photography contest and exhibition.
Increasing understanding of the mysterious creatures of the deep waters is also a major focus. Marine biologist and deep diver Laurent Ballesta spearheaded the Gombessa project to study some of the rarest, most elusive marine creatures and phenomena. Blancpain underwrote all five Gombessa expeditions, including the Indian Ocean search of the prehistoric fish coelacanth, thought to have become extinct 70 million years ago. In addition to its usual funding, the watchmaker also donated proceeds from two limited-edition models to support the fourth and fifth expeditions, namely the study of 700 grey reef sharks that inhabit the southern pass of the Fakarava atoll and exploration of the Mediterranean. In that last expedition, it achieved a world’s first by pulling off saturation diving with scuba using closed-circuit rebreathers, allowing divers to rack up 400 hours of diving time over 28 days at depths of between 60m and 145m.
And not only did Blancpain president and CEO Marc Hayek volunteer as a videographer for the Mokarran Protection Society’s maiden mission to observe the great hammerhead sharks in the Polynesian wild earlier this year, the manufacture also released a 50-piece Mokarran Protection Society diver’s watch. A sum of US$1,000 from each sale was channelled towards the cause.
Blancpain’s initiatives are numerous and varied, covering almost every imaginable aspect of ocean appreciation. They go beyond exploration and conservancy: it works with world freediving champion Gianluca Genoni, who has made fundamental contributions to medical science with experiments at high elevations and under the ice, as well as the Hans Hass Fifty Fathoms Award, which celebrates excellence in marine sciences and underwater technical innovation. The brand even orchestrates its own endeavours, such as an experimental coral restoration project on Fregate Island in collaboration with Fregate Island Private and Coralive.org.
Investing in the bodies of water that cover over 70% of the surface of the Earth can be hard work and individual projects may seem like, well, a drop in the ocean. But while the challenges are many, the rewards can be great. Blancpain’s efforts have led to tangible results, the most impressive being the doubling of the surface of marine-protected areas with an additional four million sq km. Such a victory might not have seemed possible in the early days, but as the saying goes, little drops of water make a mighty ocean.