Chronosport made dozens of different mechanical watches – to include stopwatches, including this rather unique and colorful stopwatch here, a 1970’s Chronosport StartMaster Ref. 433 Regatta Yacht mechanical stopwatch, which features a five-to-15-minute countdown to ensure your boat race (or happy hour) starts on time – before the Seiko-initiated Quartz Crisis forced Chronosport to switch to quartz.
When the quartz watch came out in 1969, Swiss manufacturers tried to get into the quartz watch market. Breitling was the first to come out with a quartz diver watch that was water resistant to 300m which you may have heard of before - the Sea Quartz 30.
During this era, the U.S. Navy was looking for a more cost-effective diver's watch to issue divers – the USN tested Seiko, Citizen, and…the Breitling Chronosport Sea Quartz 30. Breitling won the USN contract, and then in quick succession won a contract with the British Navy, as well – the first British naval officer to wear the Sea Quartz 30 was none other than Prince Andrew.
Oh, and did we mention the matte-black Chronosport UDT chronograph, which became a legend in the 1980s as the watch of choice for fictional badass John Rambo (played by Sylvester Stallone, of course). Not to mention the iconic Sea Quartz 30 diver, the watch Magnum PI wore in early seasons of the hit show, before switching over to a Rolex.
Before wrist watches were used as an aid to start a sailing regatta, sailors used handheld mechanical regatta stopwatches like the Chronosport here. At the beginning of the 20th century, brands like Breitling, Excelsior Park, Leonidas and Le Phare all developed a Yachting movement with a five-, 10-, or 15-minute counters, with a sweep-hand counting the seconds backwards from 60 to zero. These movements were used in various other watch brands as well, eg. Gallet, Heuer and Paget.
Yacht racing requires a countdown period before the start of a race to help the boats position as fairly as possible. Before the start of a sailboat race, there are two guns, the first gun signals the race will start in five or 10 minutes (depending on the type of race). At the gun, sailors start their countdown functions and as the countdown on the Chronosport timer counts down to zero, they maneuver their sailboats as close to the start line as possible.
The Chronosport countdown numbers are large; enabling the skipper to instantly view how much time has elapsed. When the chronograph is activated with the pusher at 2 o’clock, the minute timer begins and the minute and second sweep hands are set into action. The minute hand moves in a highly visible fashion into each of five parts. This will continue for five minutes until the hands have completed its revolution to zero, signaling the start of the race.
This Chronosport regatta timer comes on an olive-drab green canvas strap, and with a nylon strap, rugged travel case, and springbar tool.
1970s Chronosport StartMaster Ref. 433 Mechanical Regatta Yacht Timer
DIAL: Colorful Chronosport-signed dial, with large highly-visible color-coded central five to 15 minute register; matching hands.
CASE: Rugged matte-black 44mm 952.5mm w/crown) x 49.5mm monobloc NORYL resin case, with no caseback.
CRYSTAL: Original Chronosport crystal, no deep scratches.
BAND: This Chronosport Startmaster comes on a 20mm leather-backed olive-drab green canvas strap; it also comes with a dark blue, white, and green nylon strap.
MOVEMENT: Manual Swiss Valjoux 7770 stopwatch movement. We have performed a full service on this Chronosport.
CROWN: Unsigned stainless steel crown.
STOPWATCH PUSHER: Pusher depresses with satisfying click. Five minute timer hands – both second and minute – resets to regatta start position as designed.