GoldenWatchRetriever

Sam
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Recent posts

Sinn fireside chat with the CEO

Sinn just posted an hour long conversation between Sinn CEO Lothar Schmidt and Chronos Editor in Chief Rüdiger Bucher. The only problem is— no English...
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FINALLY! Sinn is releasing a quick adjust buckle!

We've been asking for a better bracelet buckle for years. Sinn listened. Three major improvements: Thicker steel walls for improved stability and rigi...
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New Méraud Bonaire MkII

Great review from Tom ( @BowlOfSalmon ). What do you guys think? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FkDHc6Va9U
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Recent Comments

commented on New Navitimer GMT: did Breitling drop the ball? ·

Navitimer GMT (B04) owner here!

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Changing the date on a traveler GMT movement is so annoying- it keeps me from incorporating this into my rotation.

If you are on this site— you, too— own/wear more than one watch. If you see a traveler GMT watch in the box and decide to wear it, look at the calendar realize it's been 14 or 15 days since the movement stopped... Lord have mercy.

As mentioned above— unless you are truly doing a lot of frequent transocean travel— there's no reason for the attitude that traveler GMTs are somehow superior.

commented on 🚨Decade at Job = Lorier Neptune Purchase 🚨 ·

I set the timing bezel at the beginning of play time to make sure he's getting the exercise he needs— which is a great usecase for the timing bezel! It also really sets the emotional hooks that bond me to the watch and making memories.

It will be exciting to see how your bond with your Neptune in the coming months/years!

commented on 🚨Decade at Job = Lorier Neptune Purchase 🚨 ·
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Golden Retriever approved.

commented on Today I received my Sinn U50 back ·

I've heard from other people who visited the Sinn mothership, that the problem begins with the global shortage of watchmakers, and is compounded by the lack of watchmakers in Frankfurt specifically.

Sinn wants to hire more watchmakers to help with servicing, but most of the trained/experienced watchmakers are on the other side of the country around Glashütte, and it is hard to recruit young people in Frankfurt to pursue watchmaking as a career.

commented on The Line Between Tool Watch & Military Watch ·

@blake_buettner

[Combat Veteran here]

One of the biggest problems in the watch world right now is that watch adjectives are abused until the meaning has eroded to the point where the word no longer means anything. For example: "grail"

And you've thoughtfully identified two members of the endangered species list: tool watch and military watch.

There are usually two definitions when referring to military watch:

  1. a watch that happens to be worn by people in the military

  2. watches that went through a formal procurement process by the unit's supply/support staff and then issued to people in the unit.

RE: issued gear— you always "sign for" issued gear and then return it to your supply folks and sign off that it was returned because issued gear is property of the unit/Army. Sometimes you get to keep stuff, but there's a reason a lot of "issued" gear gets buried in the bottom of a duffle bag and never touched. If it's a particularly sensitive or expensive item, you're on the hook if you lose it.

The fixation on what was "official issue" by any particular unit is actually meaningless and trivial.

Tournek Rayville touched on something that is really important: storytelling.

But it was a big swing and a whiff, because they really lost sight of what a story is.

Taking the most basic required elements in storytelling: there must be

  1. a character, who...

  2. has a want/desire, and...

  3. must overcome an obstacle to fulfill that desire, but...

  4. cannot overcome the obstacle until a specific need is met.

The relationship between obstacle to overcome and specific need to be met is the most important part when it comes to evaluating tool watches/military watches.

Using this framework, we can really see where Tournek Rayville missed the mark. We have a characterSSG Jimmie who is on an ODA. This story reeks of the kind of name-dropping smut that usually comes out of the SEAL community, but... we continue...

The first obstacle we encounter: we're delirious from being on the move for days, and we need help counting down the specific days until our next resupply drop; and the Type 7B fills the specific need with its day/date complication. I'm assuming the Roman numeral option gives you the ability to count days elapsed as an alternative to day of the week & date.

The second obstacle is the countdown to mission go-time. And the Type 7B fulfills this specific need through using the dual-purpose timing bezel to count hours elapsed. We're given a non-mission critical need that resonates with most folks— tracking the time back home because you're always wondering what your golden retriever is up to at that very moment.

We then have an inexplicable requirement for this watch to be dive-capable in land-locked Afghanistan followed by our highly anticipated SEAL name dropping! Quite the feat of self-restraint to hold it for the end of the fourth paragraph!

We then get to the meat & taters of the story where the heroic intel/agency folks show up with their trench coats and fedoras— although now that we're in the mission execution phase, this is where we REALLY need to show how the watch has a unique and specific feature that helps us overcome the obstacles that arise as the mission unfolds.

Based on this account, the watch was really only useful before and after the mission critical stuff. So the story falls painfully flat here.

We get a lot of hit & run name dropping (SEALs, 160th SOAR, sexy agency guys).

A few examples of "nice to have" features (knowing what time it is back home, counting hours/days elapsed).

But nothing that was really "mission critical" or game-changing.

That failure to align to a mission-specific/mission-critical obstacle, and the failure to show how the watch was uniquely suited to fill that need— is where this breaks down and you start to wonder if this is just tactical cosplay/LARPing.

To be fair, I can see some specific examples where this would have been really useful and filled a tactical need. Unfortunately, the author wasn't equipped to bridge that gap.

Brainstorming some ideas for mission critical obstacles/needs—

Coordinating with air assets, but they operate using a different time zone (Zulu vs Local): In the fictional Tournek Rayville story, there are references to working with air assets. We never had the same air assets on every mission because the coverage was always reallocated based on that day's particular priority (like when the SECDEF makes a surprise visit to the country and the AC-130 that was allocated to provide your Close Air Support gets reassigned... not that I'm still bitter...)— and the angels in the sky operate using Zulu time since their point of origin is sometimes a different time zone from the spot where we are holding the big surprise party. Whoever is coordinating with the air assets could be simultaneously translating Local time and Zulu time.

I need to send reports/updates up the chain, but reporting must reference both Local and Zulu time: The story had a reference to the mysterious folks who wear trench coats and fedoras. One of the most important parts of their job, is sending reports about what they've been up to. When they write their reports, they often straddle the Local—Zulu/UTC conversion, so the dual time zone function would be used quite a bit.

We're in the middle of a raid, how much time do we have left? When you are conducting a raid, you generally want to be done and heading out within ~30 minutes. If you linger on an objective too long, your target's buddies have time to organize a counterattack. Because you have so many important things that are top of mind (i.e. fighting), your sense of time goes out the window, and knowing how many minutes have elapsed since the surprise party began could be a life-saving feature when you've lost track of time, but your timing bezel informs you it's time to go.

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I think the Sinn EZM 1.1S is one of the best military watches that not enough people know about.

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Obstacle to overcome: when you are in the fight of your life, your brain hyper fixates and drops everything that isn't immediately related to survival.

There are a number of things you need to have in your immediate memory recall: mission specific codewords, the identity of your targets, the physical layout/terrain features you're operating in, most likely avenue of approach for a counterattack, arrival time/what time you need to begin the exfil, etc. When Murphy's Law says it's your lucky day and things go pear shaped— you stop thinking about what time you arrived on the objective.

When you check your watch, you run into your next obstacle: if you have to work through several mental math steps to figure out your time remaining.

If you're looking at a time-only field style watch... I hope you remembered what time the party kicked off! You look at your watch, figure out the current time... then guess what time everything started, then subtract... and then return to the fight.

If you have a dive-style bezel (like the Type 7B), the minute hand points to your time elapsed (let's say, 18 minutes).. then you have to do one more step and subtract 18 from 30 (or whatever the particular mission dictates) to get to the insight you really needed, which is time remaining before we need to run:

30 - 18 = 12 minutes.

But when you're in the heat of the moment... you don't want to be doing math. You want to look at the watch, and acquire the specific insight IMMEDIATELY, then return to the fight.

This is where the countdown bezel on the Sinn 1.1S is game changing. You glance at the watch, and the minute hand is pointing right at 12 minutes on the countdown bezel. No mental math. I'm back in the fight. The countdown bezel is a uniquely game changing feature in a moment where the stakes are highest.

Referencing the picture above, you can see how quickly your brain can get to 4 minutes remaining.

Obstacle to overcome: You can't use the radio to communicate to teammates because the enemy has a listening capability. You can't see your other team, but both elements need to move separately in be in their planned locations at a very specific time.

This is where the central chronograph and countdown bezel coming in VERY handy. Without revealing some specific tricks of the trade... there are specific movements where you need to simultaneously track two things at the same time. The particular operation has some subtasks that all need to be completed en route, and the entire operation needs to be wrapped up at a specific time. If you don't have a dual timing capability (i.e. bezel and chronograph) you have to make a choice to track one thing or the other.

If you can only track one of the events with your dive bezel (using the Type 7B example), you have to keep the second time reference in your short term memory. But having a dual-timing capability allows you to offload more to free up mental bandwidth to focus on staying alert, and staying alive.

Obstacle to overcome: You have a chronograph to track elapsed time, and you need to reference that time in a quick glance... but you have a Daytona style tiny subregister for ants.

This is where the central chrono in the Sinn 1.1S comes through. Using the picture above, you can see the airplane hand is showing: 7 minutes elapsed with immediate clarity.

One last thing— and this hits on the difference between the difference between the Type 7B and EZM 1.1S: Noise Reduction

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Both watches pack a lot of information into the dial. Look away, then take a glance at the Type 7B and time how long it takes you to acquire the time and time elapsed. You'll notice that even though the watch is black vs white contrast— there's a lot of white stuff your eyes have to sort through: the minute markers, the 12 hour primary numerals, the 13-24 hour numerals, the day/date, the second hand, the lollypop counterweight on the second hand, the hour/minute hands, and then the timing bezel.

Oh— don't forget we also have the ornamental no-rad symbol and 7B model name in white as well.

Now glance away, and then snap to the Sinn. All non-essential text virtually disappears in red. If you really need to reference the date, it's still there. But it's out of the way when you're operating at peak adrenaline.

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Whenever we evaluate tool/military watches, we're usually trying to interpret the military story, and because of the military story genre: there's an implication of a high set of stakes involved. Being able to see what time it is back home is not high stakes, but coordinating with your air asset is.

Having to train your eyes to ignore the no-rad symbol every time you're referencing the watch for something important is is frustrating. It's those kinds of features that make the watch feel like it was designed to signal military, as opposed to being militarily useful.

commented on GoldenWatchRetriever's WRUW ·

@gcruzmattei I can't imagine what that must feel like. I started to think about it before; abruptly cut it off after that sinking feeling, compartmentalized those thoughts, and have lived in a state of perpetual denial ever since.

I remember reading a comment that roughly said we're all here on earth to learn how to become better people and learn how to love— and golden retrievers leave us so soon because they don't need as long. They already know.

I hope you and your family are managing and smiling at the thought of all the good memories.

commented on Baltic Aquascaphe vs Lorier Neptune? ·

@moskiitto Unfortunately, the Baltic BOR bracelet does not fit the Lorier.

(I tried!)

The main reason why has to do with the distance of the lug holes from the case. This is actually one of the main differences (improvements) Lorier made between the version III and version IV: they moved the lug holes in closer to the case to reduce the visible gap when worn on a strap.

More posts

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Two emergencies this week... One tool watch

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Lorier released a new Hydra — Traveler GMT + Dive Bezel

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Baltic Aquascaphe vs Lorier Neptune?

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Bezel insert alignment

As I am admiring the new Lorier Neptune IV, it seemed to me like the 30 minute indicator on the bezel is off... is it just me? It looks like the "30"...
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My perfect military watch didn't exist back then

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, everyone learns about totem poles in school.  We learn that each section has a specific meaning or tells a story....
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