All slide rule, no chronograph
By Julien Moreau, Geneva ยท
Thirty-eight millimetres is the size the Navitimer should always have been, and I will defend that across any dinner table you care to name. The 1952 original was a tool for pilots, its slide rule bezel there to work out fuel burn and ground speed, and the chronograph was half the point. This one drops the chronograph and keeps the rule, which some purists find faintly absurd. To me it is rather charming, like a fountain pen nobody intends to fill.
What I like less: 38 hours from the B17 is thin by 2022 standards, 30 m is barely splash-proof, and the 19 mm lug width will annoy you the day you go looking for a strap. At five to five and a half thousand dollars, a Longines Spirit gives you a chronometer and a far longer reserve for half the money. The green dial is the reason to choose this one anyway. Smaller wrists, flannel trousers, no intention of doing any arithmetic.