The Breguet Marine Ref. 5837 Tourbillon Chronograph Has A Tale To Tell

The tourbillon chronograph is a fairly rare complication, for several reasons. One of the main reasons is that the complications both tax the far end of the going train pretty heavily – the tourbillon cage is driven by the third wheel and turns around a fixed fourth wheel, with the tourbillon adding a lot of extra inertia; and the chronograph, likewise, as traditionally constructed, has the chronograph driven by the movement fourth wheel. Combine the two and when you switch the chronograph on, you have beaucoup de extra drag on the whole system, and that plus the basic technical challenges of fitting a tourbillon into a chronograph has made the complication an unusual one, even among high end makers like Lange, Patek, Vacheron, and AP.

It therefore goes against expectations to discover that Breguet has been in the tourbillon chronograph game, albeit on and off, for quite a while. The Breguet ref. 3577 tourbillon chronograph, in the Classique collection, was the immediate predecessor to the Marine 5837 we have today, but the 3577 was produced, apparently in very small numbers, in the late 1990s and early 2000s – there is precious little information on the 3577 out there and they are seldom found at auction although they do show up once in a very great while (Christie’s had one in 2016 but the lot notes are pretty sparse).

Its relative obscurity notwithstanding, the Classique 3577 is a distinguished watch. The movement is the 25 jewel caliber 554.2, which is a two register chronograph with a center chronograph seconds hand, plus a 30 minute counter at 3:00 and a 12 hour counter at 6:00; there’s no running seconds counter. Cal. 554.2 ran in 25 jewels at 18,000 vph and had a respectable 50 hour power reserve. It was in turn derived, as far as I can follow its lineage, from the Breguet 533, which in turn is derived from the Lemania 2310/20 chronograph calibers first launched all the way back in 1942 and variants of those chronograph movements have been used by a whole plethora of makers, from Omega to Patek Philippe to Breguet (which has owned Lemania, now Manufacture Breguet, since 1992).

The Marine line of watches goes back quite a bit further than you might think as well. The first Breguet Marine watches were launched in 1990 and they were designed by Jörg Hysek, a prolific designer of watches under both his own name, and for others (one of his most famous designs was the original Vacheron ref. 222). The original Marine watches except for a larger crown, and tastefully modest crown guards, did not look so very different from non-Marine Breguet models, but in 2005 Breguet relaunched the Marine collection with the design cues we still see today – more prominent crown guards, and a more geometrically assertive case – and in 2006, Breguet launched its Marine Chronograph Tourbillon.

This time around, the caliber 554.2 that Breguet had used in the Classique Tourbillon Chronograph, got another round of technical upgrades. The new caliber has a silicon escape wheel, lever, and balance spring and the tourbillon cage is in titanium, and the beat rate is slightly faster than in the 554.2 – it’s now 21,600 vph. All of these are significant technical improvements – the use of silicon gives you lower inertia in the critical escapement components, which means less inertia for the going train to overcome; silicon is amagnetic as well.

This is a large (43mm) watch but not oversized for its complications; the case features curved chronograph pushers, Breguet’s signature coin-edge case serrations, and heavy gold lugs welded into place, with massive gold screws and bars holding the leather strap in place. The dial is decorated with a wave-pattern guilloché pattern and in general, you get from the aesthetics and heft of the watch the air of reassuring solidity you would want from an actual marine chronometer. Lest you forget that Breguet was made chronometer maker to the French Navy in 1815, the words “Horloger de la Marine” are engraved on the upper tourbillon cock. (Less well known but just as interesting is the fact that the year before, Breguet had been appointed to the French Bureau des Longitudes, which, naturally, France being France, still exists today).

The appointment was made by Louis XVIII, right at the beginning of the Bourbon Restoration, after the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon; the Napoleonic wars were very hard on the French Navy, who got the worst of it at the Battle of the Nile in 1798 and then again at Trafalgar in 1805, and while Trafalgar was certainly not the end of the French Navy’s ability to assert itself, Trafalgar was the last time the French Navy attempted to engage the Royal Navy in a large scale action. Louis XVIII was the last French monarch to die while a reigning monarch and in appointing Breguet Horloger de la Marine, he was returning the great watchmaker, who had had so many aristocrats as clients, to a place of official prominence.

From the time of his appointment as Horloger de la Marine, until he passed away in 1823, Breguet produced 78 marine chronometers and under his son Antoine-Louis, another 130 were sold until the latter retired in 1833;  the company continued to make them right up until the 1960s.

The use of silicon components also gives the tourbillon’s escapement and spring a slightly technical air, which is perfectly appropriate for a watch that summons the spirit of the pioneering marine chronometer era.

The movement is such stuff as dreams are made on.

The finishing is as lavish as you might expect, with rose gold finished plates and bridges alternating with polished steel components. All the steelwork is first class, with edges beveled and polished, and flat surfaces either black polished or straight grained. The configuration of the chronograph is unchanged from the 554.2 and indeed, from the movement’s ancestor, the Lemania 2310/2320; it is a column wheel controlled, lateral clutch caliber whose aesthetics have made it the gold standard by which all subsequent hand-wound lateral clutch chronographs are judged. One nice touch among many are the spokes of the chronograph driving wheel, which sits on the movement fourth wheel pinion – they are the same shape as those used by Breguet in his own movements.

Breguet Souscription movement

Normally, in 2310/2320 derived movements, the balance is visible opposite the chronograph column wheel. In the caliber 554.3 the balance is still in the same location, although now of course it sits inside the tourbillon cage.

There are further reminders of the excellence and history of the movement and watch engraved on the lower tourbillon bridge; on the lower curve we find “Twenty Eight (28) Jewels” and on the upper curve, “Adjusted To Six Positions” – those are the traditional six positions in which high grade wrist and pocket chronometers were adjusted (crown up, down, left, and right; dial up, and dial down). And on the right side of the bridge are the words, “Brevet Du 7 Messidor An 9.” This is the date, in the short-lived French Republican calendar, on which Breguet was granted the patent for the tourbillon – in the Gregorian calendar, June 26th, 1801 (Tourbillon Day, mark your calendars).

And thus, the lineage of this movement: The Lemania 2310/2320 begat the Breguet 533, which begat the Breguet Tourbillon Chronograph 554.2, which begat the Breguet Tourbillon Chronograph 554.3. Launched in the Marine line in 2007, two hundred and six years after the patent for the tourbillon was granted.

The Marine line is nominally a sports watch line – the more assertive case designs and rubber strap are a sign of the collection’s sports watch aspirations. I think however that it helps to understand the Marine line a little better when you think of it as an interpretation of the conventional idea of a sports watch in the context of Breguet (and in the context of Breguet as a maker of marine chronometers). The Marine Tourbillon Chronograph is a modern sports watch, but it’s also an expression of Breguet’s history of lavishing the greatest care and attention on all of its watches, from the simplest to the most complex – and of a part of Breguet’s history which is perhaps less widely known than the narratives stemming from (for instance) the tourbillon, but which are just as essential to the technical and even aesthetic history of watchmaking at Breguet.

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