{"id":1815,"date":"2024-09-04T15:23:21","date_gmt":"2024-09-04T13:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/guerin-expertise.com\/2024\/09\/04\/robert-maloubier-the-french-spy\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T18:57:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:57:45","slug":"robert-maloubier-the-french-spy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/guerin-expertise.com\/en\/2024\/09\/04\/robert-maloubier-the-french-spy\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Maloubier, the French spy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The French secret agent and adventurer, Robert Maloubier, is closely associated with the Swiss watch brand Blancpain. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He will play a key role in the creation of the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms diving watch.<\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The combat swimmers group<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the 1950s, Robert Maloubier, known as &#8216;Bob Maloubier&#8217;, was a member of the French secret service and co-founder of the <strong>French Navy&#8217;s Combat Swimmers Group<\/strong>. This group required a reliable, water-resistant watch that remained easy to read in all conditions to accompany them on their often perilous and crucial underwater missions.<\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The search for a watch manufacturer<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1952, Maloubier and his colleague Claude Riffaud decided to design a watch that would meet these specific requirements. They were declined by several watch companies, notably the LIP brand, which at the time believed that consumers would not purchase a watch with such a large diameter. Ultimately, they selected Blancpain, a brand under the leadership of Jean-Jacques Fiechter, himself a diver with a keen interest in the field, to undertake the project.<\/p>\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The first military diving watch<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The result was the creation of the <strong>Fifty Fathoms<\/strong> in 1953, a watch designed specifically for divers. This model became one of the world\u2019s first modern diving watches. The Fifty Fathoms model featured a number of highly innovative features for the time, including a large-diameter rotating bezel for measuring dive times and exceptional water resistance thanks to a new double-case-back design.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The diving depth is increased to 50 fathoms (approximately 91 metres, hence the name &#8216;Fifty Fathoms&#8217;) with optimal readability thanks to luminescent hands and hour markers. The Fifty Fathoms rapidly became the watch of choice for both military and civilian divers. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blancpain.com\/fr\/collections\/collection-fifty-fathoms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Discover the Fifty Fathoms collection on the official Blancpain website<\/a><\/p>\n\n<div style=\"height:20px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/guerin-expertise.com\/en\/tag\/history-of-lap-times\/\">The history of chronographs<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robert Maloubier is a French secret agent and adventurer who has close ties to the Swiss watch brand Blancpain. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1814,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,73],"tags":[91,93,77,99,76,101,78],"class_list":["post-1815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-historically","category-leading-brands","tag-blancpain","tag-chronographs","tag-diving-watch","tag-fifty-bathoms","tag-history-of-lap-times","tag-military-watch","tag-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/guerin-expertise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/guerin-expertise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/guerin-expertise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guerin-expertise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guerin-expertise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1815"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/guerin-expertise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1817,"href":"https:\/\/guerin-expertise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1815\/revisions\/1817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guerin-expertise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/guerin-expertise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guerin-expertise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/guerin-expertise.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}