Model: Casio Men’s Casual Sport Watch (W753-1AV)

Price: $17.47 on Amazon Prime

I’ve use a number of different sailing watches over the years. I’ve had a variety of Ronstan/Optimum Time watches and they have all worked well enough, but it is hard to justify the price of the watch for the limited number of features.

The must-have feature for any watch used for racing is the countdown timer. For me, the other must-have is a chime on the minute and the last 10 seconds on the timer. Most of the time when I’m starting a race, I don’t have time to stare at my watch, so the beeps during those last, critical seconds is super helpful.

Beyond the timer aspect of the “sailing watches”, they tend to have less features than a normal digital watch and cost twice as much. I went on a mission to find a cheap, easy-to-find watch that had the critical countdown timer functionality I needed.

I looked through a lot of Timex Ironman watches (the standard “goto” watch for sailors), but I couldn’t find one with the timer chimes I was looking for. Of course, this isn’t a wildly exciting feature for most people, so you have to dig through a lot of documentation to find what you’re looking for.

I finally settled on this Casio W-753. It has more features than I need (dual time zone, 5 alarms, auto light) and has the timer countdown beeps I’m looking for.

In Action

I’ve been using this for a number of regattas lately. So far everything is working as normal. One feature that I do miss is the “sync” button on sailing watches. You can easily pause the timer, but you can’t jump to the next minute. Other than that, I have been more than happy with this watch. I also know, because of the price, that I won’t be sad if I break it or drop it overboard.

Overall, I highly recommend this watch if you need a backup, sail small boats, or just want to get something that doesn’t cost $100.