Farer’s Moritz Green Chronograph Brings British Racing Green to British Watch Design

Colour is one of the areas in which British watchmaking excel above all others. In fact, there are some colours that Britain is internationally famous for, such as the red, white and blue that was seen all over the place at British Watchmakers’ Day. And of course British Racing Green, which is the subject of Farer’s latest release, the new Moritz Green.

It’s a really nice chronograph with a 41mm diameter case in grade 2 titanium. Chronographs tend to be on the larger size in order to accommodate the various subdials required in a tricompax display without being too crowded. The downside to that is on paper it does seem quite thick at 12.9mm without crystal and 13.5mm including the crystal. Not egregious by any measure, but noticeable. However, it’s only a small thing and the extra thickness gives the dial room to have a layered structure.

Those layers are the recessed chronograph subdials at the bottom, then the sunray brushed green dial and lastly the old radium style lumicast numerals and hour markers. Lumicast is a solid block of Super-LumiNova that glows in its entirety in low-light conditions. It all makes for a really clean, legible display that Farer have managed to give a lot of character to with details such as the 6 o’clock numeral serving double duty as the 6 marker in the 12-hour chronograph counter. It’s also a big-eye display with an oversize 30-minute counter, a style that has become popular in British watchmaking likely due to the influence of Studio Underd0g.

Zooming out from the racing green dial, the anodised aluminium bezel is presented in the same colour. Interestingly it features a telemeter rather than the usual tackymeter you’d expect on a racing chronograph. Telemeters are a rarer scale to find on watches and are used to calculate the distance between yourself and something you can both see and hear.

Essentially you use the chronograph to count the time between when you see something happen and when the sound of it reaches you, which in combination with knowing the speed of sound lets you calculate the distance it has travelled – and the telemeter has already done that maths for you. In war it allows soldiers to calculate where an artillery placement is located after seeing it fire and then subsequently hearing the explosion. Or if you’re a sailor you can work out how far away a lightning storm is based on the thunder and after multiple readings you could calculate how fast the storm itself is moving.

Powering the Farer Moritz Green is the Sellita SW510M b manual-winding movement. It’s an elabore grade calibre with a 63-hour power reserve, making it one of Sellita’s more prestigious offerings. It’s also been adapted slightly with Farer’s signature arrow style finishing when viewed through the exhibition caseback. With a movement like this, it’s not terribly surprising that this is one of Farer’s pricier models at £1,775, which is still pretty reasonable value all things considered. If you’re on the hunt for a nice chronograph to accompany you in your vintage Jaguar, you can stop looking now.

More details at Farer.

​Oracle Time 

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