Rattrapante

Definition

A split-seconds chronograph: two chronograph seconds hands run together, a third pusher stops one of them to read an intermediate time while the other continues, and a second press sends the stopped hand flying to catch up. The name is French for "catching up". It is the most demanding of the chronograph complications, because the two hands must separate and rejoin without disturbing the running one, and it is correspondingly rare: IWC's Richard Habring built the first affordable one on a Valjoux 7750 as the 79230 in 1992, Breitling's B03 adds it to the B01, Omega's 3612 to the 3313, and Patek Philippe's CHR 27-70 Q combines it with a perpetual calendar in the ref 5004.