Memosail Yacht Timer | 1970s

The Vintage watch collection at Clark Street Mercantile is curated by Montreal-based collector & watch expert Tarik Khan. Each vintage watch is inspected and in good working order.

The Memosail is a yacht timer watch from the 1970’s that is extremely unique -in design and history. Its unique blue dial is what captured our founder and lead to his first vintage watch purchase. The Memosail history stems from the history of the Ebauches SA company who, in August 9, 1972, filed to registered the name “Memosail” with the US Patent Office. Ebauches wanted to compete with other yacht timer chronographs like the Aquastar company with their 5-dotted timer with the Felsa regatta movement, the caliber 4000N. Leveraging their vast ownership of multiple companies, Ebauches utilized one of their other companies, Valjoux SA, to develop a movement to rival other yacht timers. Earlier that same year (1972), patent CH566052 “Pièces d’horlogerie à mécanisme de chronographe” was filed in Switzerland for the movement that would be used in the Memosail. The movement would be known as the Valjoux 7733/4 which was a modified Valjoux 7737.

The minute - recording wheel is a 10 minute counter that counters backwards from ten. In regatta races, it is difficult for boats to line up on a “start line” because of the motion of the water and the danger of having boats so close together. In order to overcome this, boats are positioned in a starting area and a horn is blow or a radio signal is sent. Once this happens the racers have 10 minutes to get their yachts the start position before the race begins. The disc shows 5 pieces of the timing disc between 12 and 5 o’clock. Before the chronograph starts, it displays 10-6 in yellow. As it counts down, 5-1 appear in red and then the letters S-T-A-R-T will indicate when the race should start. The disc actually runs clock-wise unlike other chronograph movements. The disc will continue to rotate until the chronograph function is stopped by hitting the pusher at 2 o’clock, and reset by hitting the pusher at 4 o’clock.

Please contact us for a shipping quote before purchasing.