Breitling Navitimer B09 and B02 Cosmonaute 41mm Chronographs

The Navitimer B09 Chronograph 41 starts at $7,900 on strap and $8,400 on bracelet. The Navitimer B02 Chronograph 41 Cosmonaute runs $10,600 on strap and $11,000 on bracelet. Both are 41mm stainless steel, 13mm thick, with a reverse-panda dial, a bidirectional bezel and a circular slide rule, a detail that used to matter and now mostly signals the lineage.

The B09 drops the date window, which Breitling says lets the case sit slightly slimmer without the caliber needing to accommodate a date mechanism. It runs the manufacture Caliber B09, a manual-wind chronograph that had previously only surfaced in limited runs, most recently the Navitimer Tribute to Miles Davis. The Cosmonaute runs the Caliber B02, a 24-hour chronograph built solely for that model, with a date. Both calibers measure 30mm, beat at 28,800 vph, hold roughly 70 hours of power reserve and are COSC-certified.

The 24-hour dial on the Cosmonaute is not a styling choice. Breitling built it for Scott Carpenter's Mercury-Atlas 7 flight, where a watch needed to track time independent of a day-night cycle that did not apply in orbit. Carpenter wore it on May 24, 1962, which Breitling calls the first Swiss wristwatch in space. The B09 draws on a different, more terrestrial chapter: the 1960s Navitimer worn by racing drivers Jim Clark and Graham Hill, who also flew planes.

Both watches are offered on a hand-applied gradient calf-leather strap, closed with a folding clasp, or on a seven-row steel bracelet finished in alternating satin and polish. Water resistance is 30 meters, which is enough for a watch that is never getting near a cockpit or a capsule again, and that is fine. These were never dive watches pretending otherwise.