Tudor’s racy divers
Uniting land and sea, Tudor launches its latest Black Bay Chrono. Tracey Llewellyn follows the timepiece’s remarkable story
Nods to Tudor’s historical chronos are found in details like the new Black Bay’s screw-down pushers and bevelled lugs
A Snowflake hand was considered essential – ‘To have used a straight hand would have made the overall aesthetic weaker’
In the world of watch complications, the chronograph has a very special place. Unlike so many other functions – clever moonphase indicators or harmonic minute repeaters – a chrono has real-world applications, from calculating the perfect boiling time of a dippy egg to recording the splitsecond finish of an Olympic 100m.
Today, chronographs are available in every form, from the most utilitarian watches to haute horlogerie masterpieces, so it is always difficult for a design to stand out from the crowd. For Tudor, which for the past 50-odd years has made some of the most distinctive chronograph models on the market, the priorities have always been three-fold: to offer technical and aesthetic refinement at an affordable price point.
“To provide the best possible watch for the best possible price has been our main focus since day one,” says a Tudor spokesperson. “When Hans Wilsdorf [founder of both Rolex and Tudor] registered Tudor in 1926, it was to produce a great technical package at an accessible price, and we don’t differ from that today.”
Initially the function of a pure tool watch, chronographs and motorsport are indelibly linked, from the bank-breaking models worn by speed devils Steve Mcqueen and Paul Newman to the versions made famous on the wrists of F1 legends including Jochen Rindt and Sir Jackie Stewart.
Tudor’s ties to motoring began back in the 1950s – two decades before the brand’s first chrono actually appeared – when an Oyster Prince was tested (and survived in full working order) on a 1,000-mile Enduro motorcycle race.
The following decade, a Submariner was the watch of choice for Tudor Watch Racing Team driver Tomohiko Tsutsumi. But the paradox of a driver in a diving timepiece was laid to rest in 1970 with the introduction of the brand’s first dedicated chronograph – a model championed by British rally driver Tim Wheatley.
Although there have been many references and variations on the theme, Tudor’s back catalogue of chronos is, in fact, fairly concise, with every model now being hugely desirable in both the pre-owned and new markets. Without doubt, the most sought after is the original, brightly coloured, manually-wound Oysterdate Chronograph, which was nicknamed the ‘Home Plate’ by collectors, thanks to its pentagonal hour indications reminiscent of the markings on a baseball field.
Made in very small quantities, it was joined in 1971 by the even more audacious ‘Montecarlo’, featuring the signature blue colour that Tudor is famed for. The name this time derived from the way the minute sections on the chapter ring were grouped into coloured squares, redolent of the numbers on a roulette wheel.
The next major milestone came in 1976 with the Prince Oysterdate, the first automatic chronograph from the House of Wilsdorf. While the case remained similar to that of its predecessors, it was noticeably thicker due to the larger self-winding movement inside – it was duly christened the ‘Big Block’ by Tudor fans. Much-loved, and a big seller for the brand, with various tweaks to design and movement, it remained in the collection until the early 2000s.
In 2010, Tudor decided to revisit the Home Plate and Montecarlo in the form of the Heritage Chronographs, important models that remain part of the line-up today and, according to the brand, “watches that started the interest in vintage Tudor chronographs”. Original models now fetch upwards of £30,000 at auction.
Then, in 2017, Tudor, which had been revitalised five years earlier by the vintageinspired Black Bay diver, decided to bring marine heritage back into the racing category with the launch of the Black Bay Chrono, housing the brand’s first in-house, selfwinding chronograph calibre.
Rooted in the aesthetic traditions of Tudor, it was a controversial model at first because it blended two house specialties: the chronograph that requires a clear view of the registers, and diving, involving a large, Snowflake hand that can affect accurate reading of the sub-dials.
For purists, the Black Bay Chrono may not be the ideal choice but, as the design element of any Tudor is fundamental, a Snowflake hand was considered essential. “To have used a straight hand like those found on a Big Block or a Black Bay would have made the cues less recognisable and the overall aesthetic weaker,” a brand spokesperson points out.
For 2021, Tudor has now united the worlds of racing and diving in the most coherent way to date with two new Black Bay Chronos. Housed in reworked 41mm steel cases and featuring black-and-white dials these are perhaps the simplest and clearest Tudor chronographs so far.
Available in so-called ‘panda’ (black on white) and ‘reverse panda’ (white on black) models, both dials feature two contrasting chronograph counters and a fixed bezel with black anodised aluminium insert and tachymeter scale. Nods to Tudor’s historical watches are found in details like the screw-down pushers and bevelled lugs, while the new construction makes for a thinner case, and the reduced crystal and rehaut appear to bring the domed dial closer to the glass and the eye.
With the Cosc-certified Calibre MT5813 movement, there is everything one would expect from Tudor. Namely, a column wheel construction with vertical clutch, an amagnetic hairspring, 70 hours of power reserve, precision of -2/+4 seconds per day, a 45-minute counter (as opposed to the industrystandard 30-minute register), a five-year guarantee and a recommended 10-year service interval.
Whether on jacquard fabric strap, aged-leather cuff or riveted steel bracelet, the new Black Bay Chrono ticks the boxes when it comes to style, technicity and value. While there may be some issues with reading off the 45-minute register between the hours of 2 o’clock and 4 o’clock, for those of us more at home on the bus than the track, it may be the coolest and raciest diver currently on the market.