5 or 10 minutes to go – that you can measure with the colored segment watches. The colors on the subdial makes the watch kind of cool, made the boring dial fancy and nice.

What we have here? Most color markers on subdials are for different purposals. There are the 8 min mark that possibly is for the unit of time of a phone call in earlier times (yes, the rate was 8 minutes). There are some for decompression and for all reasons where you need a x5 minutes time: 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes mostly.

Thats the reason why most of that watches are called “Yachting”. Maybe it wasn´t the only reason why the designer made that register but yes, they are because you can use it for the regatta start. In the 60s and 70s were produced loads of watches for multipurposes – including colored segments on the right subdial for showing 5/10/15 minutes which are necessairy to use the watch for a regatta start.

The “True Yachtings” are the one with 5-10-15 countdown and showing just this, made especially for regatta starts as for example the Heuer Skipper or the Yema Yachtingrafs.

Here is the overview.

Which brands did color segment subdial Yachtings and Regatta Wristwatches?

A LOT!

And now lets try to classify the watches with the colored subdials:

The REAL Yachtings / Wristwatches with Regatta Timer Subdial

The real ones are the Heuer Skipper, the Yema Yachtingrafs and all your will find on my website with a subdial which is designed especially for regatta starts.

Next to the known big player in this field there are many cool references from different brands.
Like this BWC with its beautiful subdial made for regattas starts.

1-segment subdial – “the understatement ones”

There are some nice ones with the one blue segment for 5 minutes to go. Most known are made by Heuer: Carrera Yachting and plus the tide counter Mareographe/Seafarer and the varieties of Tissot.

Carrera Yachtings all have 3 register and are equipped with the Valjoux 72.

The Tissot Seastars have 2 or 3 register and different dial and case variants.

2-segment – “the multipurpose subdial toolwatches”

Most common are the 2 colored segment register on chronographs of the 70s, a sign of fashion and toolwatch purpose. We find them on countless brands. And of course – the color brings fun on the dial!

3-segment – “highclass regatta subdial” 😉

The subdial made these watches classic. And cool. Look at the Heuer Carrera 3-segment Yachtings and not many other ones like that Ardath here.

Full-colored Subdials – the diver? Better called “the fancy ones”.

Another category of the colored subdial watches are the ones mostly taken for diving. But you can easily read the 5 – 10 – 15 min to go for a regatta start so they are called Yachting too.

But – not the real true yachting, because they called it for the very close looking with the Yema Yachtingraf subdials. Till now we did not see an advertisement that these subdials are to use for regatta starts too. But who knows…

Please send more stuff if you have some to add (background, advertisments, catalog-scans, text and pictures)!

To be continued …