Requirements for a sailing watch ?

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Boo2

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Hi,

Just curious to know what people's requirements are for a sailing oriented sports watch are ? I know racers need things like countdown timers but do cruisers have any special needs ? What about a tide graph ? Or is there any timing facilities that would make taking sights easier ? Anyone have any particular requests from an ideal sailing sports watch ?

Boo2
 
Boo2 said:
Hi,

Just curious to know what people's requirements are for a sailing oriented sports watch are ? I know racers need things like countdown timers but do cruisers have any special needs ? What about a tide graph ? Or is there any timing facilities that would make taking sights easier ? Anyone have any particular requests from an ideal sailing sports watch ?

Boo2
Click to expand...

Number one - Waterproof
 
Watch for sailing

No 1 it must be cheap so that I don't weep so much if it is lost. I have lost so many. I now wear a kind of guard band over the watch which seems to help avert the watch getting caught on something and the band connections breaking. I do prefer analogue readout though. olewill
 
I gave up wearing a watch on the yacht a long, long time ago. Its not really needed and it just gets in the way. I do carry a stopwatch for timing lights and have the ships clock as well. My instruments have a count down and timer built in as well.
 
I wear one of those watches made by the sponsors of Wimbledon and a few yacht races :D It serves no useful purpose aboard, though, because it's a relatively poor time keeper.

I like to keep reasonably up to date with astro and I like using a sextant. For this, I use two Casio digital watches. Many suggest to have 3 and I can see the logic.

I don't know if there is a particular method for simultaneously clocking the time and the sextant reading. I usually take the sight and mentally count the seconds until I read the watch. I always try to take at least 5 sights and draw the results on a hand written graph to get the best fit.
 
BlowingOldBoots said:
I gave up wearing a watch on the yacht a long, long time ago. Its not really needed and it just gets in the way. I do carry a stopwatch for timing lights and have the ships clock as well. My instruments have a count down and timer built in as well.
Click to expand...

I still use "one elephant, two elephants, three elephants........." for timing lights and sounds :)
 
Waterproof + Analogue + Cheap = ideal for Yours Truly

Last one I bought was from Lidl: Auriol imitation diver's watch for £6. Silver coloured hands on a silver coloured dial (duhhh ...). Took it apart and painted the hands black. Sorted.

Keeps perfect time (even better than my n-hundred pound Verity), and at least waterproof to the bottom of a beer glass. At that price I wish I'd bought their entire stock.
 
Waterproof, cheap, easy to read dial, and good timekeeper.

Timex Expedition. Around £16 a couple of years ago. Keeps better time than my Rolex and has a light as well as luminous hands.
 
Cheap, waterproof and reliable.

But beware of chunky sports watches they do tend to be a bit cumbersome to wear... I have a Casio sailing watch that falls into that category. I suspect that also applies to some of the Timex models

If you have loads of fancy features, like countdown timers for race starts, you'll never remember how to use them unless you are using them frequently... My Casio is like that.

My every day watch is a waterproof Casio that i found, damaged and discarded.
Unfortunately it has some feature for timing football matches .. :eek:
 
1. Waterproof for obvious reasons
2. Cheap so it matters less when it gets hit by something large, heavy and hard. It will
3. Easy to read when it and your specs are covered in spray
4. With a light for dark night watches
5. With an alarm to get you up for those dark night watches
6. Reasonably accurate which any quartz watch is these days

My wife bought me a Casio sea pathfinder 5 years ago that has all manner of functions but these are the only ones I use or are anything but a gimmick
 
. At least 4-5 alarms to be set at weather bulletin times
. Solar cell powered, so the battery does not run empty while one is far away and cannot get a new one properly installed (lost two watches because those that changed the battery did not change the waterproofing gasket)
. 10-20min countdown timer when cat napping outside
. I wish they had a lot louder alarm beeps
 
I like my basic casio.
It tells me everything I need without pushing any buttons apart from the light.
I just use the seconds display to star races, I don't bother with countdowns, just glance at the watch at each gun and think 'going at 12.11.41 or whatever.
Crew has an Optimum Time 5:4:1:0 countdown watch, which is very good. You can synch the timing at the second or third gun.
For proper yachting, something that tells you the date is good!
 
For a long time now (15 years?), I have tried to replace a watch which fell off my wrist into the Sound of Mull. It had an all-LCD analogue display so in normal use, it looked just like an analogue watch face but with no mechanical bits. It could show the time digitally as an option but I find analogue easier to read quickly. I think its name was Zeon or similar but google has failed to find anything similar for me.

My other requirement of a watch is a strap that will outlast the battery. That watch and its successors have all had disappointing straps.

Derek
 
To go with the sextant, I use a Harrison H7 Chronometer. I'm sure it's genuine, I got it from a retired couple called Dell & Rodney, in Peckham. They said they'd made millions selling the H6 version, this was an upgrade, made in Taiwan.
 
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