Raza

A vintage Omega Speedmaster


I love dive watches. My feelings about the Seiko MM300 are well documented. But if dive watches, for me, are primarily a way to capture the imagination and create a way out of the mental prisons we invariably create for ourselves in our modern lives, there is a type of watch that tugs very strongly at the practicality side as well. Chronographs.

Of course, it’s not just that chronographs are immensely practical, even if many say chronograph owners don’t even use them. They have other advantages as well.

My Hamilton Pan Europ


They’re good looking. There are some out there who aren’t a fan of chronographs, sure, but for the most part, people love their look. Some less-than-reputable companies go as far as to make watches that look like chronographs, even though they lack the feature (if you’re reading this, you probably already know that a chronograph is merely a stopwatch function on a watch). And vintage chronographs--so many gorgeous looks they had in the past. The old Bulova 666, with its special subdial treatment, the heart-wrenching beauty of a mid 70s panda dial Rolex Daytona, the Nina Rindt Universal Geneve Compax, blue dial Seiko Speedtimers, Heuer Autavias, the Heuer Skipper (I get butterflies whenever I see one), and a host of other beauties from companies that died long before I was born (which are, unfortunately, mostly too small for my wrist). So many gorgeous pieces made through the years.

They come in many configurations. One register, two registers, three registers; hell, I think I’ve even seen four registers (or subdials, whatever you want to call them), though I’m not entirely sure what the fourth one does, I’m not a physicist, so I run out of ways to measure time after seconds, minutes, and hours. And then there’s register placement. 3-6-9. 6-9-12. Okay, maybe there aren’t that many of those with the triple registers, outside of Hamilton’s X-Wind with its funky backwards movement and its 12-3-6 configuration. But two register chronographs add 3-9 and 12-6 to the mix. Then there are things you can do with the registers themselves. Change their colors, sink them into the dial, change the dial texture, put a ring around them, lume the hands, double up their functions (which may be somewhat commonplace in quartz chronos, but when Omega came out with that feature on the Planet Ocean 9300, I was flabbergasted); you can even color the dial so it looks like the registers are on opposite ends of a surfboard (I still kick myself for missing out on that one when I saw it on eBay). One register chronographs confuse and upset me, mainly because they seem to give up a running seconds hand, which drives me mad. But still, that option is out there, like the Seiko 6139. Hell, Omega even made a zero register chronograph in its Chronostop model. I don’t even want to know how that works, because as far as I’m concerned, it’s just magic; just like how a TV works.


There's even room for quartz love here; my anadigi Breitling B-1

Chronographs also evoke images of some of humankind’s greatest accomplishments. Sure, dive watches have been to the unexplored depths of our oceans, but chronographs have left our atmosphere and gone to space and the moon (and not just the Omega Speedmaster, which I’m wearing right now, but others, such as the aforementioned Seiko 6139 worn by Col. William Pogue on the Skylab 4 mission). Chronographs also bring to mind pilots, breaking the sound barrier, leaving contrails, and defiantly ignoring the pull to the planet’s surface while making me sing the riff to “Danger Zone” under my breath. I may find commercial air travel to be tedious and, frankly, terrifying (planes just aren’t safe, come on, think about it--it makes no sense, we can’t fly), but I’ve envied fighter pilots since I first watched Top Gun as a small child.

As a species, we don’t just test the limits of the planet’s gravitational force, of course, we also test our own limits. And one of the ways we do that is by racing. Nothing in the world stands stronger against conquering than physics, and race drivers do everything they can to fight against physical forces in a battle for humankind’s adventuring soul. After all, in a world where there is no land left to survey, no mountains left to climb, and no caves left to in which to spelunk, what do we have left to explore but our own limits? What first drew me to the Speedmaster wasn’t the space connection--no, I didn’t even know about that until after I fell in love with the watch already--but it was the watch’s original purpose that pulled me in. It was a racing and sport chronograph, not a space watch, today’s marketing be damned.

Chronographs have other connections to racing as well. Before I was a Speedmaster man, I was a Monaco man. The one in particular, the gem of my collection, is the Monaco Vintage LE, released over 10 years ago in 2005, which was an homage to Steve McQueen (a hero of mine) and the racing suit he wore in the film Le Mans. More racing. And Steve McQueen. Forget it, that’s just icing on the cake when you look at the aching good looks of the Monaco, and the bold offset red and blue stripes on the first-ever white dial Monaco. Having that watch makes any “grail” discussion a bit of a strange exercise for me, as it is my grail and I already have it.



But I digress. Let’s discuss for a moment the practical benefits of a chronograph and just depart a bit from the fanciful aspects (it may be the lateness of the hour of the bottle of Neuro Bliss I just drank--what’s in this stuff? It’s so good, it should probably be illegal), but if I don’t stop myself, I could go on for pages about the chronograph and humankind’s need to find its own breaking point.

The practicality of timing things is immense. There are myriad uses of a stopwatch. Sure, there are ways to time things in other watches as well. If your watch has a running seconds, you can just watch it, depending on how well marked the seconds track is. If you’ve got a dive bezel, you can time things that way, though to get and exact minute, you’d have to line up your pip with the seconds hand, not the minute hand, which can be tricky as it sweeps towards you. Plus, that method only allows you to time for one minute exactly. Beyond that, you’re back to counting revolutions on fingers (and maybe toes, I don’t know what we’re timing here). Parking meters? Check. Steaks on the grill? Check. Time it takes for a room temperature beer to get cold in your freezer? Check. Timing your yacht race? Of course it can, don’t be silly.


Best way to time a burger. Takes more than 14 seconds, though.

And let’s not forget the immensely satisfying moment when someone bothers you at work or the like, tells you that they’ll only take a minute, and you get to reach to your wrist, push a button, and tell them exactly when their time is up. Oh, how I miss that. You have the power of time in your hands (well, in one and on another, but you know what I mean). You can stop it, you can start it, you can measure it, you can create intervals; chronographs give you some semblance of power over this cosmic constant. Well, there I go again.

Two types of chronographs interest me the more than any other kind: mechanical and digital (including anadigi). Your run of the mill quartz chronograph, though I’ve owned a few, isn’t my cup of tea these days, as my attitude towards quartz has led me to ones that only do things either not possible in a mechanical (or are impracticably expensive to get). Nothing against them, and I wouldn’t even say that I won’t buy another one in the future. I mean, the Seiko 7a28 is something else; wouldn’t mind having one of those. But my main focus is on mechanical and digital (though mostly anadigi; I’ve only got one digital in my collection, an excellent Suunto X-Lander Military, and that seems to be more than enough). And it’s a journey, I’ll tell you that.

As amazing as chronographs are, there are downsides. Case thickness, though usually not a concern for me (I used to own a 45mm Helson Shark Diver, and while I never got my caliper out to measure it, I think the best way to measure its thickness is in hands, like how you measure the height of a horse; I believe it was 6,247 hands--just an estimate), can be an issue. The Valjoux 7750 movement, which seems to power so many automatic chronographs, seems to found in cases only 40mm or larger--again, not a problem for me, as I generally like them 42-44mm, but it can be an issue for those with smaller wrists or more historical sensibilities when it comes to watch sizes.

Registers can make the dial harder to read for those with aging eyes (though the Speedmaster is a graduate course on how to make a superbly legible chronograph dial--and while I like the current Rolex Daytona, they could learn a thing or two here. I mean, silver rings, on which the markings are written, around a white subdial on a white dial?). They’re more expensive to purchase--trying to find one below the four figure mark, or even hovering around it, can be an exercise in hair pulling. And I would be remiss not to mention the service costs. My Monaco, two years back or so, with its complicated Dubois-Depraz chronograph module set me back a cool $700 at an independent watchmaker. A basic 7750 service cost $400 at the same shop. While I’ve never actually had to service a three-hander (likely a function of how short a time period three-handers tend to be in my collection in general, whereas when I put the time and money into a mechanical chronograph, I tend to keep it), I’m told those are much cheaper to have serviced.

Of course, I wouldn’t want those minor drawbacks to scare anyone away--just making sure you’re prepared for that should you catch the chronograph bug like I have. After all, connecting to our species’ adventuring spirit and having a modicum control over time has got to be worth it, right? Besides, how else are you going to count down to the start of your regatta?

Keep time, guys.