World War II had finally come to an end, and fate was about to bring together three men without whom the Fifty Fathoms would never have come to life. Jean-Jacques Fiechter, CEO of Blancpain from 1950 to 1980, was himself a diver, dreaming of uniting the two essential aspects of his life: watchmaking and the sea. Two heroes of the Free French Forces, Captain Robert "Bob" Maloubier and Lieutenant Claude Riffaud, initiated the creation of a combat swimmer unit within the French army. An elite corps whose mission was to carry out underwater espionage activities as well as execute sabotage acts such as the destruction of ships or the attack on ports. These were feats accomplished by frogmen who most often operated at night.
To successfully carry out such missions, Captain Maloubier and Lieutenant Riffaud needed reliable and robust instruments, including a diving watch. Why? Firstly, to measure dive times and not exceed the oxygen reserve duration of the soldiers. But also for the ability of such an instrument to time the necessary duration to reach navigation objectives. Finding nothing on the market that met their needs, they decided to contact Jean-Jacques Fiechter, CEO of Blancpain. This is how the genesis of the Fifty Fathoms began…
The three men were on the same wavelength, and the project materialized quickly: "A watch with a black dial, large numerals, and clear indications in the form of triangles, circles, and squares, as well as an external rotating bezel mirroring the dial’s markers. This would allow, at the start of a dive, the bezel to be aligned with the large minute hand to indicate the remaining time. All of this thanks to markers as obvious as a star to a shepherd."
Both passionate, specialized, and visionary, Jean-Jacques Fiechter went further by adding several key innovations. A unidirectional rotating bezel to prevent accidental rotation, which could mislead the diver into thinking the dive had started later than it actually had. A screw-down case back for optimal water resistance. A self-winding movement to reduce the number of crown manipulations, thus preserving the watch’s waterproofness. Protection against magnetic fields, essential for a timepiece used for military purposes. And finally, a humidity indicator located at six o’clock. In the form of a small circle, it displays a blue hue if the air inside the case is dry. At the slightest water infiltration, the color changes to pink as a warning signal.
The three men had clearly thought of everything, and in 1953, the Fifty Fathoms—meaning 50 fathoms in English—was born. From then on, it perfectly met the needs of combat swimmers, but not only them… Commander Cousteau discovered the Fifty Fathoms by Blancpain and chose it for his historic dives, immortalized in the film The Silent World, which won an Oscar and the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1956.
Thus, the legend began and never stopped… The Fifty Fathoms was even delivered to the U.S. military and established itself as a true source of inspiration for all future diving watches.
A watch-instrument that today has risen to the rank of an icon, representing one of Blancpain’s main creative pillars. This explains why the manufacture offers the Fifty Fathoms in numerous versions under the Bathyscaphe collection.
