Best Watch For Professional Mariners

Hamburger? What? Oh, I get it, haha. Yes, I did. That is certainly not a place I would expect to have to look to find different catalog sections. Dropdowns pinned at the top of the window would make a lot more intuitive sense. Stuff like that should be accessible at all times, or at least be clearly labeled at the top of the page. I’ve been actively doing computers since 1980 and it had me scratching my head – imagine some poor codger my age who isn’t a computer guy?

The shirt is amazing, by the way. I’m wearing it now.

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That wegner’s a nice watch, I like the simplicity of the design and the colors.

There are plenty of tide watches out there but few with the simplicity of that wegner. For the best value and durability check out Casio’s G-Shock Gulfmaster line of watches.

Timex sells a few nice Tide Watches but, like the g-shocks, they look like something ripped out of cockpit of a Tie Fighter. Timex did make one with a nice simple design that I really like a lot. It was recently discontinued but can still be purchased.

I don’t think that most boaters care about tide watches anymore (Westmarine doesn’t even carry one) because they always have a cell phone on them BUT surfers don’t carry phone and need to know the tide plus need a watch that can survive the occasional rock slam. While I can’t speak for them directly I’ve seen a bunch of surfers wearing Nixon watches and looking over their collection, they have a few very nice and simple tide watches for sale.

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Celibrated my first mates job (1972) by buying a Rolex GMT Master, a month’s wages down the drain, it never kept decent time, certainly was not the “Chronometer” they claimed it to be and they never did get it fixed. Went with Seiko & Casio after that no problem. Most of today’s watches are far to complicated for the task at hand. One analogue display with tritium hands & hours for LMT plus a digital lit display set for GMT would be my pick.

Perfection would be the above with half hour ship’s bells; but then I’m old school. :wink:

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Not all of the tide watches work well everywhere in the world and in fact, particularly the West Coast of US, G Shock used to be known for how imprecise they were. You want to buy watches that are pre programmed with tidal information. The newer G Shocks have no problems as far as I’ve heard and the G7900 is probably the best inexpensive tidal watch that I’ve seen on the market.
Nixon is a nice watch, but severely overpriced for what they are. It’s first and foremost an activewear fashion brand. I own a few of them that were gifted to me and honestly rarely wear any of them, they’re heavy, oversized and not that durable.

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Mmmmm Omega watches… I want one of the moon watches.

My home watch is a Tag auto date. Its sick though and needs to go to the shop as it will just randomly stop. :frowning:
Ahhh the joys of an automatic.

My work watch is a Citizen black nighthawk with a sapphire crystal face.


I wish i had gotten a plain stainless steel band as the black has worn off on the back where I rest my arm to type and stuff. That’s my only regret.

The arms stay bright at night and the sapphire crystal face is awesome. I have taken my knife point, a benchmade with a D2 steel blade, to one and it just around. The only thing that can scratch it is supposedly a diamond.

It’s radio controlled to the ±15 sec a month but seems to keep pretty good time, sucks that the steel of the ship keeps the watch from updating, so it grabs an update when I get home.

Of course it being a Citizen no battery to change ever, but they say the capacitor last about 10 years before it needs to be replaced.

I even use the inner ring all the time a easy to set timer for everything from pizzas in the oven to 15 min DP drift test.

With the right working of the buttons you can get it to automatically change to any of the 4 main US time zones, a time zone of your choosing, and GMT. Also has a stopwatch and alarm.

Note I do take it off when I go on deck as it’s uncomfortable to wear with gloves and I generally don’t like to wear a watch when I get sweaty for whatever reason.

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Ok, so we have added a small number of watches to the store which we think are of good quality and useful to the mariner. Do any of you have significant complaints or bad experiences with any of the watches we now offer?

https://shop.gcaptain.com/collections/new-arrivals

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Jeebus, Omegas have gone up in price since I got mine. Good choices though I’d say. Nice to have a range of options to choose from.

I wear a 15 dollar analog Casio diver style watch for both engineering and EMS. Water resistant, sweep second hand. If it gets broken I replace it.

Fancy watches get smashed, scratched, etc.

Here’s a link. http://amzn.to/2ioMsye

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I once had a Luminox watch with plastic case. I loved everything about it, but it’s the only watch I’ve ever owned where the case broke in half one day when I was working underneath my van. I think I’d be inclined to stay with their metal cases. They used a four megahertz movement IIRC.

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As a surfer from the stone age before “smart” phones I didn’t need a tide watch. I didn’t need to know the stage of the tide while Ibwas surfing. I checked the paper when I was thinking about going out, and used local knowledge to decide if and where to go for that day’s tide. Once I was out, If it started to suck, I went home. But after giving up surfing for whitewater kayaking, I can appreciate resistance to the ( not) “occasional rock slam.”

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Some potential mariners’ watches: https://www.steinhartwatches.de/en/marine-watch.html

I’m partial to this one, but not partial enough to pull the trigger:

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I’ve never heard of Steinhart… what’s good about them?

As I understand it Steinhart is well known for making “homage” watches, check out their dive watches and you’ll see what I mean, they look just like a Rolex submariner (? - maybe, I’m not an expert). But they use quality movements, but not made in house, and quality materials to produce a quality but not outrageously priced genuine automatic watches.

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That’s a nice looking watch. I’m partial to this one of their lineup though:

This looks interesting too. From what I’ve read itt’s basically a knock off of the Omega Seamaster but has all of the high end fit and finish plus more (e.g. Ceramic bezel) for a quarter the price: http://www.squalewatches.com/Squale_Matic_60_Atmos_Dive_Watches_s/111.htm

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As an outsider may I respectfully suggest the basic field watch by Marathon, now called the General Purpose Quartz With Tritium. https://www.marathonwatch.com/product/general-purpose-quartz-tritium-gpq/

MIL-SPEC, tritium dial, light, strong and thin. Waterproof to 3ATM. Mine is still ticking after ten years. Can be had for under $200 today, $100 when I bought mine. They also make pricier maritime and aviation watches to the same standards.

Cheers,

Earl

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First of all, you are no longer qualified to call yourself an outsider here. Second, your always welcome to straighten us non-engineer out on equipment standards, military or otherwise :grin:

Yes and it now comes with gCaptain’s famous (or, at least, soon to be famous!) 100% satisfaction guarantee: https://shop.gcaptain.com/products/marathon-military-watch

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I’d rather have the Luminox, especially when they’re the same price. Any idea when you’ll be getting them back in stock?

No, our supplier is backordered at the moment.