The Blancpain 50 Fathoms Automatique, In The Goldilocks Zone

Somewhere buried in Blancpain’s archives, there is an extremely long video of a conversation I had years ago with Robert “Bob” Maloubier. Maloubier was one of the architects of the post-World War II French commando combat swimmers units, although he had a very busy Second World War. His account of his war was hair raising – as a teenager fleeing the occupation, he went first to Tunisia and from there, to Algeria, where he was recruited into the British SOE, or Special Operations Executive. I asked him what he did during the war and he said, “I blew up things belonging to the Germans,” and when I asked him what he did after the war, he said, “I blew up things belonging to other people.” I think I remember, although I cannot unfortunately produce a transcript, that for a time he worked as a big game hunt guide in Africa but quit the work when he realized he didn’t care for shooting elephants.

In any case Maloubier is widely credited with having gone to Blancpain with the specifications for what would become the 50 Fathoms, in the early 1950s and the first time I saw any 50 Fathoms watch in person, it was the 50th Anniversary Edition from 2003, which is an incredibly beautiful watch – sapphire bezel, which seemed quite exotic at the time, and a quite small case diameter, relatively speaking, at 40.3mm. The solid caseback was engraved, “Au Capitaine Robert ‘Bob’ Maloubier père de la Fifty Fathoms” (“To Captain Robert ‘Bob’ Maloubier, father of the Fifty Fathoms.”)

Bob Maloubier, with the 50th Anniversary 50 Fathoms (image, Blancpain)

Since then, the Fifty Fathoms has been produced in a number of different models – there are now over 130 different models in Blancpain’s catalog, which includes basic diver’s watches, complications, and exotica like the X Fathoms, which is a 55mm titanium watch with helium release valve and depth gauge. The X Fathoms at 55mm is a major outlier in terms of size, but most other 50 Fathoms watches have come in around 45mm in diameter.

There have been 50 Fathoms watches closer to the size of the original, including the “No Rad” limited edition, which was 40.3mm in diameter, and the 70th Anniversary limited editions, which were 42.3mm in diameter and which came in three “Acts” in stainless steel, titanium (the “Tech Gombessa“) and 9 karat “Bronze Gold.” However, these were limited editions and earlier this year, Blancpain announced that the 42.3mm case would be returning to regular production, in the 50 Fathoms “Automatique,” which was released in red gold and titanium.

If there’s one thing watch enthusiasts love to insist on, it’s that a paltry couple of millimeters can be make or break, but the truth is, you really can tell the difference and it makes a difference to the proportions of the watch as well. Your mileage, as they say, may vary; for me 45mm feels too big, too difficult to wear except under particular circumstances, most of which involve my doing something I aspire to but have never done, which is actually dive.

At 42mm, though, it’s a different story. The new regular production Automatique watches are not the 50th Anniversary watch that made me fall in love with the 50 Fathoms for the first time but they are on their own merits, wearable and very beautiful examples of a particular genre of modern watchmaking.

That genre is the luxury dive watch which is in itself, an oxymoron – although you can’t really complain that dive watches should not or cannot be luxurious; we can all think of solid gold examples of what started out as diver’s tools and as long as the basic technical features are intact – as long as nothing has been compromised functionally – then I can’t think of any reason why a diver doesn’t deserve a little gold on their wrist. In any case, the 50 Fathoms Automatique is available in titanium as well and for all that I wish for the 50th Anniversary 50 Fathoms in steel to come back to the collection, and in the 50th Anniversary size, I don’t think Captain Maloubier would have particularly cared about a millimeter more or less.

The original 50 Fathoms had an extremely wide bakelite bezel and overall was 42mm in diameter – in general, for working dive watches bigger is better; the bezel is easier to turn and a bigger dial is just easier to read. The last person in the world, if I can speak for someone who had done more daring things by the age of 20 than I have done by the age of sixty, who would have cared about a millimeter more or less is Bob Maloubier, for whom a watch was a tool that had to perform under life and death conditions. I’d like a steel 40mm 50 Fathoms but that is nostalgia, for something I saw that was introduced in 2003, and the truth is, in titanium, especially, the Automatique launched this year, with the caliber 1315, would have made a lot more sense to Bob Maloubier.