- Model: Breitling 7650 Yachting
- Year: February 1969
- Material: steel
- Size: 43 mm diameter
- Movement: Venus 178
Extremely rare Breitling 7650 Yachting – Venus 178 – February 1969
Only a handful of Yachting models were made and few have remained in such a great condition.
The movement on this 7650 is the legendary Venus 178. This movement was heavily modified to accommodate the 15 minute aperture minute counter.
This watch was initially purchased from its original owner – Bill Condon. Bill was an engineer/ pilot with the Military Sealift Command
Unlike a race on dry ground, in a regatta boats are unable to start a race from a dead stop. Short of anchoring, there’s no way for them to be perfectly still. At the start of a regatta, yachts are jockeying for position behind a starting buoy for 15 minutes before the starting gun goes off, when a countdown starts and the competing vessels launch past the start line 15 minutes later.
Breitling had released a yachting timer alongside the Reference 765 AVI or Co-Pilot, perhaps the most desirable of their vintage chronographs. In the late 1960s, Breitling followed up the Reference 765 yachting timer with the Reference 7650. The 7650 was slightly larger than the 765, at 43mm, and came with two different bezels-the first being aluminum and silver, and the second painted black and with a redesigned fifteen-minute countdown.
In 1969, shortly before the introduction of the Chronomatic, the Reference 7650 would be given a new reference number, 7660. After that, the manual-wind yachting timers (all powered by Venus movements) would be phased out in favor of the Chronomatic movements.
