Breitling Navitimer 1 B01 Chronograph 43 Pan Am Edition AB01212B1C1A1 Men watch

Breitling Exospace B55 Yachting Watch Review and Notes on the Breitling Professional Collection

I've owned this Breitling Exospace B55 Yachting watch for a while now and it's on my wrist most of the time. It’s an ana-digi quartz watch that’s big and rare, weird and rare – I love all of those qualities, except its rarity on the market and on people’s wrists. Here's more on its pros and cons, why it speaks to me...and why I think it's important to us watch lovers, especially the Breitling fans among us.

This wouldn't be my holy war trying to convince anyone to try a quartz watch - not to mention the blasphemy that the Exospace B55 is also a quasi-smart Breitling watch with Bluetooth connectivity and an app to go with it! I'd say the Breitling Exospace B55 Yachting is probably hovering at the bottom of the larger watch enthusiast community's cumulative watch wish list (let me know if you think I'm wrong - I want it to be the case), which makes it harder for me Communicating my positive experience with this watch.

However, what I have to say may resonate with you. I'll admit that the vast majority of watches with basic automatic movements were forgotten by me not too long ago - if you can recognize the feeling, then you might want to consider this B55. To clarify, a watch with a basic ETA 2824 or 7750 has to work really hard these days to keep me as fascinated and excited as ever. The short power reserve, audible wound rotors and repetitive feature set no longer excite me. All the function-related and design-related dilemmas of watches are with or without a date... oh, and if we do have a date, what's the least intrusive place? When I'm wearing a watch for my own pleasure, I need it to both excite me and free me from all that boring crap.

I won't go into detail about why so many of the recent automatic transmissions in the world tend to lack all of these things, because that's a topic for another discussion. Suffice it to say, sometimes they just don't. So, how does the Breitling Exospace B55 Yachting perform? Let's take a look at the aforementioned list of selfish indulgences.

Recreation in the Breitling Exospace B55 yacht
The entertainment that one finds in a watch is very subjective. Below is a subjective list of what I call "the entertainment factor in modern luxury timepieces." If you're the kind of guy (or girl) who gets mad at the fact that your mileage might be different, skip to point 2). When it comes to entertainment on a watch, subjectivity is a matter of one's prioritization of the objective component. These elements include (but are not limited to) the brand, design, function, and story (or, if not, marketing) of the watch.

In this case, branded entertainment is absolutely guaranteed as far as I'm concerned. I think Breitling is a very interesting company. As far as I'd like to look back on its past, it's always been that way, even as the way it enjoys entertainment has changed over the years. From scantily clad ladies to fighter jets, to bold (and sometimes very bold) watches and collections designed for very specific and very cool usage scenarios, Breitling has a lot to bombard one's senses with. Of course, the decor girls are gone—in an almost creepy all-encompassing way—and so are the ridiculous ad campaigns, but the vibe of positivity and uniqueness continues to linger around the brand. The logo for these changes is the winged « B », which is replaced by the retro cursive B, which, in fact, already exists on the crown of Breitling watches.

However, this Exospace B55 still has wings on the dial, and those wings remind me of that surprisingly non-PC Breitling that has been doing its thing. To be fair, I'm happy to say that despite the dramatic changes in the brand's circumstances, it remains more uncompromisingly focused on its business under Georges Kern. For me, the atmosphere of manufacturing, design and brand independence will always be a core part of Breitling's charm.