The Watch: The Fifty Fathoms is the dive watch that beat the Submariner to market in 1953. Blancpain developed it for the French Navy's combat swimmers, working with Captain Robert "Bob" Maloubier and Lieutenant Claude Riffaud, who specified everything from the unidirectional bezel to the high-contrast dial. The name comes from the maximum depth a frogman could safely dive in that era: fifty fathoms, or roughly 91 meters. The Chronographe Flyback variant adds a complication that's specifically useful for divers, allowing instant reset and restart of the elapsed time function with a single pusher press rather than the stop-reset-start sequence of a standard chronograph.
Reference 5085F-1130-52A is the 45mm stainless steel chronograph with the black dial. The case construction includes Blancpain's signature unidirectional rotating bezel with a sapphire crystal cap covering the luminous diving scale, which protects the markings from scratching and provides a clean visual finish that ceramic insert bezels can't quite match. The dial features applied steel indices and Arabic numerals with luminescent fill, bold sword-shaped hands, central chronograph seconds with a luminous arrow-head and red tip, a 30-minute counter at 3, a 12-hour counter at 9, and small seconds combined with the date at 6 o'clock.
Inside is Blancpain's caliber F185, an automatic flyback chronograph with a 40-hour power reserve. The flyback function separates this from a standard column-wheel chronograph and gives the watch its specific utility for timed intervals.
Water resistance is 30 bar (300 meters), well beyond what most divers would ever encounter.
This example is in excellent condition. Comes with both the rubber strap and sail-canvas strap, with pin buckle.
Condition: Excellent.
Includes: Watch with both rubber and sail-canvas straps, pin buckle.
