When Commander Maloubier and Lieutenant Riffand of the French navy struggled to find a watch that met the exacting, technical and rigorous standards, demanded at their Ecole des nageurs de combat (Combat Diving School), they commissioned Blancpain with the task of meeting these specifications.
The watch developed was the “Fifty Fathoms”, which was named after the greatest depth that a combat diver was allegedly able to withstand at the time. The watch combines various elements such as the anti-magnetic and water-resistant case, a screw-on case back, the ‘double O-ring crown system’, an automatic movement and the unidirectional rotating bezel.
The “Fifty Fathoms” quickly became well established as an essential piece of diving equipment for the military. A further development of this model, a more civilian version, followed soon after. When the famous diver Jacques Cousteau had launched his own line of diving equipment, in particular the scuba air regulator named Aqualung, a series of Blancpain’s celebrated diver’s watches were made bearing the same name.
The present example, one the very rare “Aqua-Lung” version, has been selected by Marc A . Hayek to participate in a themed exhibition in 2011, dedicated to the Fifty Fathoms.