The history of the Fifty Fathoms brings together two lineages. First is that of Jean-Jacques Fiechter a passionate diver who was Blancpain’s CEO for three decades, 1950-1980. The second is that of Captain Robert “Bob” Maloubier and Lieutenant Claude Riffaud, founders of the French Navy’s combat swimmers corps and who were searching for a reliable watch for their underwater missions. With continuous improvements in mind, Jean-Jacques Fiechter incorporated a circular water-tightness indicator to the Fifty Fathoms, where if any liquid were to leak into the watch case, a disk at 6 o’clock would signal the problem by changing its color from white to red.