watch alarm

[JD-MDR]

I'm thinking of getting this Sea Witch watch commander. Does anyone have any comments to make . I found this one and another called Last Watch II http://www.sailsafely.com/Alarm

[wikakaru]

I used to use my trusty old Timex Ironman for this. It had a "count down restart" function that I set to 15 minutes (but which you could set to whatever amount of time you wanted), and it would alarm automatically at the end of the period and then automatically start counting down again. On passage when we changed watches (in the nautical sense), the offgoing watchstander would remove the Timex from their wrist and give it to the oncoming watchstander, saying "It's your watch", both literally handing off the (timekeeping) watch as well as figuratively handing off watchkeeping responsibilities. An Ironman costs about $35-40.

There are also plenty of free smart phone apps that do the same thing. I use one called Interval Timer set at 2 minutes to remind me to blow the fog horn. The alarm on Interval Timer isn't as annoying as the Timex Ironman, so it's perfect for fog signals during the day but less good to wake you up if you happen to doze off on watch in the middle of the night.

Smooth sailing,

Jim

[John Stone]

JD,
I don't know what it costs. It's got to be hard wired in so it is another thing to complicate your 12v system. There are lots of timers out there. I use a west bend kitchen timer and it's pretty loud and automatically resets. I have to hit the button to start it again. It's cheap. Doesn't interfere with anything else. And who is it going to wake up if you fall off the boat and you're singlehanding? I think it's one of those things that preys on our fears.

I'm here to tell you you that claim about you can't sleep through it is bogus. When you are exhausted you can sleep through an outgoing artillery barrage. You can sleep on soaking wet ground with your rucksack on and rain beating you in the face. So you can sleep through a buzzer I don't care how loud it is. Anyway, I digress.

Having said all that, what does not work for one person can be must have gear for someone else. We are all a little different, our brains work different, we have different levels of experience, we manage stress different. If it seems like an important item to have on board and you'll sleep better get it.

But you might try out a digital kitchen timer first if you haven't already. I'll be home tomorrow and if you remind me I'll shoot a video of my timer working and see what you think.

And I have used my phone too and that works well as Jim pointed out but I try not to have my phone loose in the cabin.

[JD-MDR]

Most of the fishing boats Ive worked on had these probably more industrial. These look kinda tinker toy. It seems that most if the boats that went aground is because someone was asleep at the wheel. If you dont reset it on time a buzzer goes off but if you still dont reset it you can have as loud an alarm as you can find. It was good because if a guy got caught he might get fired or at least made a mockery of. When the loud alarm goes off it wakes up the whole crew

[MFC]

Just wanted to mention that Russell (who used to sail a CD and was a fairly active member of this board 5-10 years ago) reviewed these very favorably on his youtube vlog. Might be worth checking out for anyone interested. I believe his review is in one of the 5 or 6 episodes he titles "my favorite things" (i.e., favorite gear).

-Matt