The Grey Nato - Episode 06 - "Summer Mountain Time"

Published on Tue, 12 Apr 2016 08:49:28 -0400

Synopsis

The hosts, James and Jason, discuss outdoor adventures and gear for hiking, camping, and diving this summer. They recommend various items like water bladders, knives, watches, dry suits, and accessories to prepare for upcoming trips like summiting Mount Baker. They also answer a listener's question about a good travel/adventure watch under $500 with GMT functionality. The episode closes with an interview with Giles English, co-founder of Bremont watches, who discusses their new regatta timer watch and partnership with the America's Cup sailing event.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacy Welcome to episode 6 of The Grey Nado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, gear, and most certainly watches. I'm James Stacy.
Jason Heaton And I'm Jason Heaton. And now, thankfully, it's time to shed the sport coat and get outside. Today, James and I are going to talk outdoor adventures. We've got an action-packed show lined up for you. We're going to be talking about gear, some Alpine goals, some Q&A is back this week, and we've even got a special interview that's coming up later in the show. We're pretty full up, so let's get right underway. It's April and here the ice is finally off the lakes, James. I'm sure the sun's out in Vancouver finally. You've got a few weeks of sun, hopefully this summer, and it's time to get outside. So what have you got lined up for this summer? Anything?
James Stacy Uh, yeah, so there's still a lot of snow in the Alpine for Vancouver. So it's just, we're right on that like teetering edge of when all the stuff in the North shore opens up, but there's hiking to be done up in Squamish, which is a little bit more padded from the snow. You know, I'm, I'm trying to get in as much hiking as possible. I have a goal. I'm going to hopefully summit Baker. in late June, so Baker's kind of an intermediate entry level mountaineering mountain in northern Washington. It's 10,800 feet and there's a, you know, you can take a guided kick up there. So I've always read and loved mountaineering and this is kind of the next step is to give it a try on like a very safe scenario. So we get to do some glacier travel, which I'm really excited about. And theoretically, if everything works out, hit the peak after a day of hiking in the snow. Wow. You know, in July, we've got kind of the Graynado adventure weekend coming together. So you're going to come up to Vancouver and we're going to do some diving and some hiking and kind of compress it all into one weekend. Super cool. And so, yeah, between those two things, I'm going to try and get as much hiking in and on the days where you can't hike because it's Vancouver and the sun doesn't last forever. I'll try and get some diving in to keep those skills sharp as well.
Jason Heaton Well, yeah, I mean, I'm really excited about our July weekend. We've been We've been talking about doing something all winter and I've got some serious cabin fever here. So, uh, yeah, I booked, I booked plane tickets. We're going to, we're going to do some, some fun stuff up there in mid July. Um, I'm a little worried since you're, you're kicking your training into high gear for Baker. So, uh, I don't know how I'm going to keep up with you. I better start getting in shape. Um, and to that end, I've got, uh, we've got a couple of hiking trips coming up, um, in a couple of weeks, my wife and I are headed up to the North shore of Lake Superior, which is probably one of my favorite places in the world to go. You've got the big lake, you know, cabins and sort of little fishing villages and things like that. But then there's just some really great hiking. There's a trail there called the Superior hiking trail that runs from Duluth, Minnesota, which is at the kind of the terminus of Lake Superior, all the way up the North shore to the Canadian border. And we'll, we've, we've done a good chunk of that trail over the past, I don't know, 15 years. We've done a lot of the segments. We'll be up there hiking in a couple of weeks to kind of kick off the season. And then in June, We're going out to Colorado. We're going to stay near Lyons, which is a little bit outside of Boulder, and try to bag a few peaks out there, which I think will be a little bit of a rude awakening, because we're living at about 800 feet above sea level, and the trailheads in that part of the country there, Rocky Mountain National Park, start at above 9,000 feet for most of the trailheads. That's so high. It's brutal. It is just brutal. I've toyed with the idea of talking to some guide service out in Jackson, Wyoming. I've always had this long-term goal of climbing the Grand Teton. I climbed Mount Rainier a few years ago. I think it'll be kind of a similar experience to what you'll be doing with Mount Baker. The Grand Teton, it's kind of another one of my goals, although it's a little bit intimidating because there's some technical rock climbing near the top that I'm not terribly proficient in, so that might be a bit of a stretch. You know, diving, we've always got some, some adventures cooked up. I've got some tentative trips on the calendar down to, uh, the Southern Caribbean, possibly a trip to the Mediterranean. Uh, the usual kind of Great Lakes stuff that, that pops up every year. And then, um, our Pacific diving in Vancouver, which I'm, I'm super excited about. Oh, it's going to be great. Yeah. So all of this really, uh, really sort of, um, especially your Baker trip, I'm sure you're, you're having to gear up for that. Are you, uh, kind of shopping for gear now? Are you going to rent some stuff or what's your plan for that?
James Stacy Baker the gear list is massive and I own like none, none, none of it. I have very little of it that I need. So it's going to be a mix of like buying things that I think I'll use repeatedly and renting the stuff that that would be really limited to actual mountaineering. Yeah. And then borrowing the things that kind of lie in between. You just got to beg, borrow and steal your way into it. Yeah. I think with spring well underway and summer, summer out here, I think the main thing that we want to encourage people to do is if you're pretty much anywhere in the world, there must be some hiking to be done around or even just some adventuring, whether it's not specifically hiking. Yeah. So I wanted to talk about like, what's the minimal amount of gear as far as an investment that you could get away with, um, if you wanted to spend a day outside of cell range. Yeah. So Jason, if you're going to go out and, and walk even somewhere just near to your house, or if you're going to, you know, make a day or a weekend or whatever, out, out to superior. What's kind of the kit that allows you to get away from your cabin, but still be, you know, fully self-sufficient and not have a lot of weight?
Jason Heaton Well, there's a lot of online lists about carrying the 10 essentials, they call it, which, uh, sort of, I'm not going to go over the whole list right now, but, you know, they talk about food and water and, uh, weather protection and a compass and that sort of thing. And, um, you know, that, that's sort of safety kind of equipment, but in terms of just what I generally take, I mean, starting from the bottom, I'm, I'm a real, proponent of wearing proper shoes or proper boots. And I personally, I've got an old knee injury that always kind of makes me a little skittish about, you know, tumbling on a rock or something like that. So I always wear, uh, they're kind of overkill, but I've got an old pair of leather mountaineering boots that I just laced up really good and they're broken in really well. So I tend to wear those, you know, I take rain gear. I've got a nice Gore-Tex jacket that compresses nice and small. And I tuck that in the bottom of my pack, but I'm not a real fan of, of rain pants. I mean maybe in your part of the world where you get a lot more rain or if I was headed somewhere where it's you know it's really wet and boggy or I know it's just gonna be a rainy weekend I'll throw some rain pants in my bag too but otherwise I just wear like synthetic hiking pants or what I'll often do is I'll wear you know like a pair of long underwear like pants like just a base layer on my legs and then some zip-off pants or some shorts over that. I just find it allows me to kind of move easily and you know, obviously nothing cotton that's going to absorb any, any water for rains or if I sweat a lot, you know, day pack, I'm usually, usually when I'm out hiking, it's, it's usually photography based or it's usually, you know, I want to take some photos. So I usually take a, I've got a small pack from the brand called F stop, which is, and I'm a huge fan of, uh, and they make a small pack called the Kenty, which, uh, has a little roll top dry bag type closure at the top where I can put some food, you know, a couple of energy bars and a, and a good sort of liter of Nalgene, Nalgene water bottle. But then it has padded camera and lens pockets on either side. So that's kind of my go-to day pack. And then, you know, usually I wear like a, like either a baseball cap or sort of a wide brimmed cap, something synthetic. Cause I tend to sweat a lot when I'm hiking and you know, I just don't want it to get soaked and usually some sunglasses. And you know, I'm a, as people know from our show, I'm a big, you know, we're both big, mechanical watch nerds. And I would say hiking is kind of the one occasion where I use it as an excuse to bust out my old yellow Suunto Vector, which is the sole digital quartz watch that I own. And it's just a basic old school, what they call an ABC watch, altimeter, barometer, compass watch. And it tracks altitude, you know, ascent and descent. And then there's a barometer for tracking weather changes. And then a compass, which is one of the 10 essentials, one of those safety things that you want to take. If you are outside of cell range, you need to navigate a little bit. You have a compass right on your wrist. So that tends to, that tends to come along as well. And oftentimes it's a little geeky, but I'll clip that on my backpack and then I'll wear, you know, like my Seiko or Rolex or whatever watch I have on that day. So that, those are kind of my, my minimums, you know, it's food, water, comfortable clothes, some weather protection. And then of course, you know, whichever camera I'm taking along. So. How about you? What did you take? You were just out yesterday, weren't you doing some hiking?
James Stacy Yeah, I was up in Squamish. My brother and I went through a back route up, you know, a mountain bit called the Chief, kind of the main focal point for Squamish in many ways, you know, huge climbing area. It's around 2000 feet of granite, but we took a back road so that we didn't have to deal with the crowds. You know, there's a tourist route up the front. And I had a great time. When I hike, you know, for me, it's about being as fast as possible and as minimal as possible. So not only in terms of how long it takes me to set it up, like if I decide Friday night, the weather looks good, I'm going to go out the next day. In Vancouver in the summer, let's say it was nice in the morning, but my hike was so long that somehow it was raining in the afternoon. I'll just get wet. I'm not going to bring a jacket with me. When I go hiking away from home, I have a, like a Marmot, their lightest, smallest, thinnest, pre-sip or something like that. Exactly. And it packs into its own pocket and that's pretty good. And that's basically daily kit in Vancouver just to get like to and from work and appointments so that's uh that's always around yeah otherwise i have a small bag it's a duder bag i mean you can buy a small hiking bag at rei or if you're in canada at mac for as little as like probably 20 especially if you don't care necessarily the color and i honestly think you shouldn't yeah 10 to 14 liters is plenty for a day bag i would say buy one that has a sleeve for a water bladder I don't really like carrying a water bottle because if you want a sip of water, you have to take the bag off. So then what you do is you end up waiting until you're very thirsty, or at least I, little OCD, wait until I'm very thirsty and then take the bag off and chug a bunch of water and then it sits in your stomach. And like water, you're not better to drink water in big chunks. You're better to have sips as you go. So you can buy, I have a, it's a Camel 3 liter, just barely fits in my bag. On all but one hike I've ever been on, which for those of you who've been to Vancouver or live in Vancouver, you know, there's the Lion's Peak. It's these two kind of twin peaks that overlook North Vancouver. And I took the long route along the Howe Sound Crest Trail. Ended up being about 11 hour day. What I needed in addition to that water pack was a life straw. So this is like, it's like a blue tube, about seven, eight inches long, has a filter built right into it. And you can actually just put one end in They claim some pretty sketchy sources of water and then just suck water back. So it doesn't work in the same manner of some where you can fill your water bottle and it's filtering it. It's literally designed so that as a secondary source of water, you use it like a straw. Yeah. So we were able to stop and swim in these kind of alpine pools, ponds basically. Yeah. And I was able to use that straw and not use the water in my pack. So these are, aren't very expensive. They do something like 10,000 liters. I think they're about 20 Canadian. So there's absolutely no excuse that you shouldn't have one of these because it's literally something that could save your life in that worst case scenario. Yeah. and it's no money and no weight. So get a LifeStraw or there's some competitors. So just, I guess, pick the one that makes the most sense. You can get water bottles that like you fill them up and they filter as you walk around. This is much more simple than that. You literally just put one end in the water that you'd like to drink. A small first aid kit is essential and worth like $8. So get that. Protein bars. I don't like to eat when I'm actually underway, but when I finish and I get back to my car, I'm really hungry. So a protein bar. Yeah, your normal sunglasses. you hadn't mentioned carrying a knife, but I always carry a pocket knife with me. It's kind of a point of habit since I was a kid. So I have a Benchmade mini grip. I have trouble recommending the mini grip because like it's about 90 bucks. I think a little bit more if you buy the S30V steel, but you can get a really decent like adventuring knife, like not one to carry to work or like in your pocket all the time, but like a simple adventuring knife for way less. But if you want a nice folding knife, check out a Benchmade or Spyderco. They make excellent knives. And then of course, just like with watches, you can go up into four figures for a pocket folder if you really want to.
Jason Heaton Oh yeah. Well, for some people a knife is, it is like a watch. It's something they collect. It's something that could potentially be an heirloom. So yeah, I guess that comes down to priorities.
James Stacy Yeah. And then the only other two things I would mention is, like you said, you have a Suunto Vector. I'm reviewing a Garmin Fenix 3, which is kind of like one of the top range GPS enabled kind of multi-sport watches. The review's killing me because the watch can do like a thousand things and I don't really know entirely how I want to review it because it's a smart watch and it does all your fitness tracking and it'll do your sleep tracking and then it's a fairly competent like actual watch but then it also does literally almost any sport that you're into. They either by default cover it with the watch or you can go on to like an app store and download trackers for other apps. Wow. They're expensive. I think they're about $600. Let's say $500 to $600. Yeah. The short of it is, is it gives you a bunch of data that then goes to an app on your phone and to a website so you can see your overall time on the trail and a map and your heart rate and climb and descent and it's mostly just nerdy details. But as far as a safety device, you obviously have the altimeter barometer compass built in. And then you have full GPS and you can tune the GPS depending on how accurate you need it to be and how long you need the battery to last. But the GPS has a lot of merit in that you literally cannot get lost as long as the watch still has power. And I mean, worst case, it's actually a neat design because the charger is like a little thin cradle that clicks onto the back of the watch. And you can then put the watch back on your wrist. So if you have a little USB power pack in your backpack, and this is what ultra marathoners are doing, they'll just run the USB cable into the backpack and the watch, and it's only like a 300 milliamp hour battery. It's a tiny battery, so it charges quite quickly. It's a really neat device if you like that kind of data. My actual recommendation is if you want a digital watch for hiking, go with something like the Suunto or, you know, something like a Protrek from Casio or I use the Casio Rangeman for like my first probably two years of Vancouver hiking. And that's a fantastic watch. And that still gives you the compass. So as long as you know how to use a compass and, and, you know, understand how headings heading in and heading out is basically what you need for that usage. Yeah. But there's, you know, there's a lot to be had from, Oh man, you can get pro tracks under a hundred bucks pre-owned. Yeah. All the way up to six, $700 for a really high end. So until like the Ambit three or this Garmin, the Phoenix three, these are, uh, there's, there's a lot to be seen. I can't wear these watches day to day. They're very big. They're very sporty. It's like wearing running shoes all the time. I have like a problem with it. Yeah. But for specific activities, for me running, the Garmin, some guy online built like a tool for measuring sets and reps for your workout. Wow. So you don't lose count as to how many sets you've done. Oh, sure. And it does it all on the screen and it vibrates when you should start doing another set. It's great. I love it. And it was like a dollar, I think, or $2. Huh. But yeah, for running and for working out and for hiking, it's a fantastic tool and I like having the data, especially leading up to something like Baker. And then finally, I recommend having just something to cover yourself from the sun. I bought one of these, they're kind of called Shemags. It's like a big scarf. If you've ever seen like, you know, Black Hawk Down or any of these movies with kind of desert warfare, you know, special ops guys, they have these kind of green or black and white scarves. it's and they cost like nothing and and I mean like a sunburn I really don't like getting like really bad sunburns and a hat can really only cover so much especially because I have to hike in a t-shirt and typically in shorts and during the summer months but I'll link what I've what I've got in the show notes so check that out.
Jason Heaton Yeah I'm I also have I've got a when I was in Sri Lanka over the winter a friend uh gifted me uh it's one of these sort of elastic neck gaiters that can also be used as a sort of a hat or a headband. You can use it for any number of things. You could double it up on your wrist and use it as a wristband. In the U.S., people might be familiar with this brand called Buff. And Buff was sort of, I think they were made famous by that show Survivor. Everyone used to wear a buff on their head. Oh, sure, sure. Anyway, this is an Australian brand. It's called Head Socks. And it's kind of the same principle. It's nicely made. I think it's sort of a I don't know if it's got any cotton in it but it's sort of elastic and it's very minimalist and I just kind of prefer the, it has a little bit more subdued patterns on it than the buffs do. So I've been using that. It kind of works as a sort of a bandana around the neck or you can put it up around the head as a headband. I was just going to go back and kind of revisit the water carry situation because I think there are sort of these two schools of thought. You mentioned you prefer carrying a bladder and I used to be a bladder guy. We're talking about water bladders. I'm talking, you know, we're talking about the water bladders that, that you carry your water in and your backpack. And when I was, when I did the Mount Rainier climb a few years ago, that we were doing sort of an equipment check the day before we did the climb and the guide, um, who's done, I think he's done more ascents or summits of Rainier than anybody else. He was a real knowledgeable, but very, you know, sort of Zen kind of guy. And he was like, he was going all off, going over all of our gear. And he said, he really does not like bladders because Um, you're carrying this, this bag full of water right next to all of your very vital, uh, stuff that's going to keep you warm and dry up on the mountain. And if it happens to burst, if you fall and land on your back and the bladder bursts or the tube pops out, uh, you know, you're, you're, you've kind of ruined your down jacket and things like that. So he's a real, he was a real bottle proponent and, and his logic also, and just besides the potential disaster of that happening was that a bottle actually forces you to stop and take breaks. And it's also a better way to kind of measure your, your intake because a lot of these bottles, especially like the Nalgene's will have markings on the side and you can kind of gauge like, okay, we're going to do this summit attempt and it's going to take us five hours. If you have two bottles, you can kind of gauge like each stop, we're going to stop each hour, each half hour, and you drink up to this mark on the bottle. And it kind of helps you ensure that a, you're stopping and B, you're kind of taking in a consistent amount each time. And I, you know, I, I kind of, I've done both. Lately I've been more of a bottle guy. And I have this small day pack that I got years ago that is great for... It's not big at all. It's from Mountain Hardware. And we'll put a link in the show notes. I can't think of the name off the top of my head. But it was developed in cooperation with the famous Swiss mountaineer Ueli Steck. And what it is, is it's a really small, very lightweight day pack that has shoulder straps that come over the front. And actually on the front, the straps are very wide as they come across your chest and they clip together with about three sternum straps to kind of hold it all together because then you have two pouches, one on each of the shoulder straps where you can put a water bottle in it. And I think, you know, Uli Stek is kind of known for this really fast and light, you know, alpine essence that he does, but also he does a lot of mountain trail running. And so I think for him to have those bottles close at hand, I suppose you could even put a straw in it and a drink while you're on the move. But I have one of those that I use for like really, you know, really light and fast kind of day hikes where I'm not carrying maybe a big heavy SLR camera or something like that. So.
James Stacy That sounds like a great design. And I, I hadn't considered those elements with the, the Nalgene specific, like with the bottle, I find that the bladder works really well for my one day kind of flash in and out. Yeah. But yeah, that makes a lot of sense, especially in a scenario where you're working so hard that you are definitely going to be taking breaks. Yeah. And being able to know how much you're drinking is important because that's definitely a problem with the bladder that I have is like you kind of judge by how much weight or how much you can feel it sloshing around. Yeah. But that's not accurate at all. And you could you could theoretically drink too much and then not have it later in the day.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I'm not sure what the weather conditions are going to be like on Baker when you go. But if it's similar to Rainier, which I'm guessing it is because it's kind of similar part of the country in altitude. It was it was cold. And I think if I had a bladder, there would have been potential unless I had like the insulation kit. For the hose to actually freeze up because it was, you know, it was well below freezing when we were doing the climb over several hours. And I suppose that's another consideration. So I think for, you know, for the kinds of, you know, weekend adventuring we're talking about for day hikes and stuff, bladder's fine, you know, use whatever your preference is, but listen to the experts when you get up in the, in the high stuff.
James Stacy Yeah. Regardless between bladder or bottle, whatever you decide, make yourself a simple lightweight kit that works for your general area. By all means, take a picture of your gear, maybe lay it out on the floor, tag TheGreyNado, we'd love to see what people are using. And if you have a favorite piece of kit that you'd like to take out, whether you're hiking or diving or whatever it is, just let us know. Send us an email, TheGreyNado at gmail.com. We'd love to see what people are using and there's definitely room for improvement in any great kit.
Jason Heaton Okay, welcome back. It's time for the new business section of our show. This is where James and I talk about reviews we've done, watches we have in, new gear. James, what's new up in Vancouver these days?
James Stacy Oh, I recently got in a Marathon SAR Diver. So this is a Canadian brand that makes kind of watches that the Canadian Coast Guard and Search and Rescue have used. Pretty much anyone who's into dive watches, even a little bit, will already know Marathon for a number of their models. But the reason I got this SAR, because it's not a new watch, and it's one that I had a quartz one years ago. It's a great dive watch. Yeah. I actually got this one in for kind of an interesting thing with one of the sites I write for, with a blog to watch.com. So one of the guys at a blog to watch, Matt Smith Johnson, is doing a charity bike ride in Toronto. He's a fellow Canadian. And it's the ride to conquer cancer. So, you know, hit the show notes for a link or Google it, but it's this big ride and a blog to watch is partnered with marathon and with crown and buckle to kind of put together a whole package that helps promote the overall charity of the event. And Matt's going to actually do the ride. Uh, and I think it's kind of a cool thing and it's a cool watch. It's going to be part of a giveaway. Uh, so it's coming in for some photos and I'll do a hands-on kind of piece with it, which I'm excited about.
Jason Heaton I love the SAR and he's self-respecting. dive watch fan should at least at one point in his life own a Marathon Star. I think it's just sort of a rite of passage they're such great watches.
James Stacy Yeah they're really accessible and you have a tritium illumination which is really nerdy and tooly. Beyond that I've been enjoying a purchase I made while we were in Basel. I'm always kind of on the lookout for a better way to carry a few watches usually like to things like maybe a local collector meetup or even when traveling. And I have some of the kind of loose canvas watch rolls, but I find that like, you know, you get a couple of watches in there, especially a couple of watches that might be a little heavier or have the bracelet, and you can really feel them kind of shift around and bump into each other. And I know that it's not metal on metal, but I just like something that's a little bit more solid feeling in the way that it holds the watch and divides so that maybe the cases don't touch in any way. Sure. And so I picked up a watch case from Maurice de Mauriac, which is a Zurich-based brand. And I've known the guy that runs the brand, Daniel, for a few years. He has a really fantastic taste and a really keen eye for quality. And he makes these. They're fairly expensive, to be warned. He makes these zippered cases in a few different sizes. I think one for two watches, one for four. And then I think he does one for eight or 10 watches. And I got the one for four. And it's very high-end leather. It's beautifully made. And it's basically, if you remember the smaller CD wallets, you know, that would hold like, you know, a single, you know, one CD per page. Yeah. It's like that, but you know, it's not as thick and like maybe, maybe in real life it would hold six CDs, but it's thick enough to hold four watches and it holds the cases in an offset fashion so that they don't touch when you close it. So they're held down by like a little gusseted elastic. You kind of zipper it shut. And it's that kind of, maybe it's just recognizable in that like, I was in grade nine when we had CD wallets and, and, uh, a seat, you know, a Sony Walkman or Panasonic shock, one of those. And, and, and maybe that's why, like, I kind of linked to it, but I really liked it. It's kind of a nice tan Brown and it fits in a backpack really nicely. If you're in the game for a high end watch case, by all means swing by Maurice DeMauriac and check out what they've got. They make some beautiful watches as well. And finally, we were chatting about some hiking and stuff earlier. I'm always carrying my camera with me. Last week, I spoke about the Migo Agua, which is what I use to carry it, and it was amazing on yesterday's hike. All of the photos that I'm taking, I'm not going to share them all that frequently on Instagram, but you can go to my Flickr account if you want to see some of these places that I'm chatting about. It's flickr.com slash JStacy, and you know, I'll upload each kind of hiking event as its own album. I start throwing up photos there as opposed to clogging up Instagram with, you know, a half dozen hiking photos every Saturday.
Jason Heaton You had some great photos from, uh, from your hike yesterday. I really enjoyed seeing that. That was great. Thanks. And how about you, Jason? Uh, what's new in my world? Well, you know, I just finished writing a couple of watch reviews a while back. I took, I took the Nomos Ahoy, which is their, it was kind of, I wouldn't say it was their very first attempt at a sports watch. And I think that, that, uh, claim to fame belongs to their club, which was a few years old. But the Ahoy was a watch that sort of evolved out of their famous Tangente model, which is that very Bauhaus with the slim lugs and very thin bezel, kind of the stylized font on the dial. Anyway, the Ahoy was sort of their version of a quote-unquote dive watch. And it's a 200-meter water-resistant watch, comes on kind of a cool two-piece perlon strap with some kind of cool colorways. Anyway, I took one of those diving quite a while ago, actually, in St. Martin down in the Caribbean, and I've recently written up my review of that for Revolution Magazine. That'll be in the magazine in the summer issue. And then a few weeks ago on this show, I talked about the Glycine Airman No. 1, that really cool reissue of a 1950s pilot's watch. And I finished my review of that, and that should that should show up on Hodinkee, so look for that. In terms of sort of non-watch related stuff, this past winter, my old dry suit was, the zippers were starting to get a little tough to pull. I actually pulled one off the track. It was time to replace my dry suit. So I sourced a used one that I got on a local dive forum here in the Twin Cities. And I bought the secondhand Weitz dry suit. Weitz, I think it might be a Canadian company. But they recently got swallowed up by Aqualung, the big, the big conglomerate, the big dive gear company. But it was sort of an odd dry suit. It fits me really well. But the inflation valve, if you're familiar with dry suits, you have to, they're sealed at the neck and at the wrists and the boots are actually, you know, welded or glued onto the suit. So you're completely sealed into the suit to keep water out. But then you provide your buoyancy and your insulation by pumping air into it. And the valve for dry suits is usually mounted on the chest. Well, this one had the valve down on the right hip, which was a little strange. And I thought, you know, you can easily get valves moved. And so I took it to the dive shop to see what could be done. And the guy at the dive shop got really excited because he's like, he started looking at the suit and he laid it out on the floor and he was examining it. And he said, do you see how the zipper is like really shiny and these valves have an NM on them? And I was like, yeah, what does that mean? And he said that, that this suit was actually a used bomb disposal suit. Oh, very cool. Yeah. I mean, you know, it kind of appealed to the sort of, uh, the geek in me. Um, but if people that are into dive watches might be familiar with the old IWC Ocean 2000 watch that, that was made in the eighties for the German Navy, uh, that was made to be completely a magnetic. And the reason for that is that if you're underwater disarming a mine or a bomb, you don't want anything magnetic that will, inadvertently trigger the bomb to go off. So the valves are all non-magnetic. The zipper is non-magnetic. It's made of different material than the typical brass zippers you find on dry suits. The vent valve is actually down on the forearm rather than up on the upper shoulder so that when you're venting your dry suit you just raise your arm straight up over your head rather than kind of leaning one way to vent out of the shoulder. And then this valve, this inflation valve that I was talking about, is down on the hip because the suit was actually designed to be worn with underneath a chest-mounted rebreather unit that doesn't cause bubbles. And so they put the inflation valve down on the hip and then you carry a little inflator tank in a thigh pocket. So I ordered an inflation kit that I'll be putting in the thigh pocket. I'll be using it as it was designed. The key is it fits me really well. It's really well made and with any luck, James, I'll be wearing that when I come up to Vancouver and we can get some photos of it in action.
James Stacy Oh, that sounds like a really cool setup. I've, you know, I've, I've seen the hip inflator, but I always assumed it was wrongly. I assumed that it was specifically for Argon. Oh yeah. Man. I just can't think of how hardcore like rebreather dry suit separate, separate inflating system. That's, that's a real tool device. They're definitely purpose-made really cool stuff.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I'm excited to give it a try.
James Stacy And we're back and we're back with question and answer. So we didn't have it last week because the episode was really long. I want to thank everybody who's sending us emails, thegraynado at gmail.com. If you have a question, I think these are a great way to keep in touch and to know what everybody's thinking. Like it's just fun to have these questions come in. So Henry actually wrote us a little while ago and I'm just getting to the question now, but he said, I'll be studying abroad in Rome this fall. and I'm looking for a watch to celebrate this opportunity. What is a watch that can stand up to and add to the stories that will come with such a great experience? Henry then goes on to elaborate that he's looking for a watch that's under $500, is no more than 41 or 42 millimeters wide, and preferably has a GMT feature. What do you think, James?
Jason Heaton Yeah. What are your recommendations?
James Stacy I would do what I've done in the past and still have, is a Seiko SKX007 with a 12-hour bezel mod. We've really kind of overcooked this issue. The SKX is just a fantastic watch and you can go online with your Bokeys or I'm sure many others and buy a 12 hour bezel, which gives you the ability to track another time zone with no fiddling with the actual watch movement. That's a really great choice and you just want to watch that you can leave on your wrist, you can wear all the time and if you want the GMT, I think something like an SKX or Jason has a couple of great suggestions for you. So Jason, how would you conquer this kind of need?
Jason Heaton Well, we talked about vacation watches a couple of episodes ago and I think it's no secret that you and I are both big Seiko fans and you can't go wrong with the SKX with a 12-hour bezel. I was going to throw out also, Seiko makes a couple of really cool kinetic GMT watches, but I don't think they meet your size requirement. I think they're quite a bit bigger. It might be more than 500 as well. Yeah, that's true too. Well, I know we talked about Marathon a little bit earlier with the SAR dive watch that James is reviewing, but Marathon is a brand that I would also recommend in this case. They make a watch called the Navigator, which is sort of the evolution of the Benruss Special Forces dive watch that was made in the early 70s. And Marathon has sort of carried that forward with more of a general purpose military or pilot style watch. It has an asymmetric case and a rotating 12-hour bezel, a really legible dial. It comes in a quartz movement, very durable, great for any sort of bashing around adventures that you do. And the case is actually sort of a lightweight composite resin. So it's super light on the wrist. It should hold up to some smacks and drops and things like that. And it comes in at $300 or $400, so easily meets your criteria in that regard. The other watch I might recommend would be the Citizen Nighthawk. The Nighthawk is part of this Skyhawk Nighthawk collection that Citizen has. It's sort of a pilot-style watch. The Skyhawk tends to be sort of more full-featured, has a digital display in addition to the analog display. It has a slide rule bezel, different colors, bracelets, straps. The Nighthawk is a little bit more of a simple watch. I like the aesthetics a little bit more. It's a little more classic looking. Again, very legible dial, big sword hands on it. It does have the ability to track a second time zone. And I think both of those would be good choices for any adventures that you've got ahead of you in Rome.
James Stacy Yeah, no doubt. All right, we're back with our first Greynado interview. So we're going to try and do as many of these as possible. We really like interviews. This is kind of our first go around and we're really lucky to have the first one be with Giles English, co-founder of Bremont Watches. Jason sat down with Giles at Baselworld. So you're going to get some background noise. We're going to call it ambience. And they had a really nice chat about the 2016 lineup, the, you know, connection with Regatta timers and really just kind of what makes Bremont tick. So we're going to try and do more of these in the future. We'd love to know what people think of the interviews. And lastly, if you know somebody that you think would make for a really interesting interview and kind of fit the Graynado vibe, send us an email. So without further ado, here's Giles English, direct from the floor of Baselworld 2016. Take it away, Jason.
Jason Heaton So we're here with Giles English, co-founder of Raymont Watch Company. A lot of buzz going on here. They got some great new additions this year. Giles, why don't you talk us through a few of the novelties and the philosophies behind each of them, starting with the big one, the regatta timer.
Giles English The big one, the regatta. Well, first, hello and thank you for coming along. Sorry, there's a bit of background noise here, but it's quite a buzz being in Basel. The regatta. As you know, we've been working with the America's Cup and we're official time partners of the America's Cup. I actually trained as a naval architect, so I'd always loved sailing and always loved of being on the water and to me a regatta movement and the way a regatta watch should be really is just a way of using a chronograph and I always, I love the visual effect of the changing dials and changing colors that a regatta gives and so we've been working on two regatta movements for the America's Cup edition, one working surrounded by America's Cup on the sort of the classical elegance the history of the Cup and then the OTUSA which is working with Team Oracle and designing more of a technical piece so yeah it's been a really lovely project to work on.
Jason Heaton So what you've got so you've got two editions. Yep. Different movements in both or it's the same module for each one?
Giles English Same movements, we just tweak the modules. Okay.
Jason Heaton So we... So for those who maybe aren't familiar with how a regatta timer works or how this one works specifically why don't you
Giles English So in basic terms, a gas timer works opposite to a chronograph in the sense it gives you a countdown. So when that cannon goes or the horn goes for the start of a sailing race, it's normally five minutes. So I have five minutes before that race is going, and I have to cross that line in an ideal world, bang on five minutes. If I'm a second fast, I get disqualified. If I'm too slow, I'm behind the pack. So it gives a really nice visual countdown timer. So when you're racing, it's awfully critical and it's a really useful function to have. So that's where the whole philosophy of regatta movement comes from.
Jason Heaton Now what I've seen in the past with some other brands that have made regatta timers is they sort of take, I don't want to criticize anybody, but sort of a lazy approach where they'll just have a standard chronograph movement and they'll put some red marks on the minute counter. But you do something different. You actually have a visual red disc or something that's counting down to indicate the time across the line, right?
Giles English Yeah, so what we wanted, I wanted to have the proper chronograph functions, that is a 12 hour timer and a minute timer and a center seconds on that. I also wanted a date and it's very hard, because you've got concepting disks, it's bloody hard to build that into a movement. And I've got clear changing disks and on the OTUSA it's actually three disks that move around. So one gives a countdown, another gives the ability to move it to a 10 minute countdown, and the third disc is a 15 minute chronograph, so it's counting up to 15 minutes. So it's quite nice little features, but ultimately it's these different discs giving you a visual reference of where you are, and they click over in 30 second intervals, so a full disc is a minute, a segment and the half disc gives you 30 seconds. And a lot of people just use it for timing their eggs at three and a half minutes or something. So we wanted, with the America's Cup edition, we wanted more of an elegance, that whole style of that collection is a really classic style. So we simplified that so it's just two discs and the OTUSA collection We've added the 15-minute count-up timer, so it's got a third disc in there.
Jason Heaton So that's sort of more of the tactical team version as opposed to the AC, which is that classic.
Giles English Exactly.
Jason Heaton You've got the AC-1.
Giles English It's taking off that AC. It's just that really understated classical watch.
Jason Heaton Before we move on to talking about the other novelties that you've got this year, fill us in a little bit on the status of the America's Cup relationship. This is a sort of between year, right? It's a qualifying year. The actual finals happen in Bermuda next year, right?
Giles English Yeah, exactly. So what there are, there's a whole lot of series races. There's six series races this year, and that leads up to the final, which is next year in Bermuda. And if you win the series races, then you go into the final with more points, so it helps.
Jason Heaton So you'll be at the events this year, and then, of course, next year you'll be in Bermuda.
Giles English Yeah, so we go around. And being the first British timing partner in America's Cup since 1851, it's just a lovely thing to be part of. But it is a niche sport. But these watches, we want to appeal to everyone, whether you sell or not. And I think there were gaps of function. When you have it on your watch, compared with a chronograph, you think, actually, I prefer it to a chronograph.
Jason Heaton Oh, I love Rugato Tigers. It's such a cool complication, because it was developed for such a niche reason. But like you said, you can use it for other things.
Giles English And there's not many people who do them. And we built it off a 7750 base. but with the Etta don't do a single component. So everything's bespoke. Yeah. Um, and, uh, so it's a really nice movement. We're not making many of these built it with, uh, limited series. Uh, yes, all limited. We're only doing, we're only doing, um, 235 of each of the watches. And, um, because we can't make many more of those movements and, um, expensive movement to make, but in a competitively priced watch, we wanted, we wanted it to sort of, um, Yeah, to really sell very well and I always, it's my excuse for doing a regatta watch as well. Yeah, that's great, that's great.
Jason Heaton And then the other kind of big story from your perspective is the Solo 32 which I saw, which is a smaller sort of targeted, primarily women's market.
Giles English So it's quite, yeah, we always want to do a small ladies watch, but there's always an issue. You make a movement smaller, it becomes more inaccurate. And we were testing a lot of movements and they couldn't get them through COSC. And every watch you make, apart from a couple, are all COC certified, so all chronometer specced. And we wanted to make a ladies watch which was COSC, still 100 meters water resistant, hardened steel, all this is the Bremel DNA, but in a nice little 32 case, and an automatic movement. And we finally found a movement that we worked for us and developed that and working with Sleater on its new movement today. And it's a really good movement. And did you get the cost certification? It's all cost certified. So it'll all be cost. Yeah. And and what we've managed to do is is just create this really pretty little ladies watch. But because I hate the thought of people paying a lot of money for quartz ladies watches. It's a sort of It's one big con in the game out there, and I think if you're going to buy something, you want to make something beautifully mechanical that will last.
Jason Heaton That seems to fit in from what I've seen. I think it still has enough of the DNA of the brand.
Giles English And we're not going to bling on it. We're only making, once again, quite small numbers. I think any guy who's bought a Bremen watch It's buying something for a wife or girlfriend or mistress. May they never meet. Not at the same time. It could get confusing. It's something that Nick and I were really nervous about designing. And we didn't want to go too bling on it, too diamondy or anything on this edition. So to look at it, it looked a bit different, but you could understand it was brand new. Anything else?
Jason Heaton We did the 51, which has been a real hit judging by social media and photos and things.
Giles English That was another one. We did the P51 Limit Edition years ago and we'd always loved it. Those sell for three or four times on the second of value now and we love that style. We developed the lume just for that watch and we thought actually why don't we bring that into a cool collection piece. And it's quite funny that we can now actually go into our archives now. It's the first time we can actually do that. And that's worked very well for us. Over the last two or three years, we've made huge investment in manufacturing in the UK and what we're trying to do. I think as a business, we grew 35% last year, but we'll make a lot less profit pumping it all in. But for Nick and I, that's the fun bit. It's developing a ex-411 guy to make little movement components or cases, but it's a challenge. In a competitive market where, you know, why British-made type thing? Because you want to do more, and different markets have their ups and downs. 20% of our business is just making for military, so that's a really nice business for us, so we can do various stuff. working with Lights for America's Cup, you have to deliver and do a good job. You've been there, you've seen what it's all about, but it's high-pressure stuff. We're just a small little business trying to work hard. And I think this Regatta watch, I'd just recommend anyone playing around with a Regatta, just treat it as a chronograph. And it's a really nice chronograph feature. So yeah, definitely pick up and have a look at that.
Jason Heaton Great. Well, we'll wrap this up for now, and maybe I'll go take a look at it right now.
Giles English Well, you're stars. It was lovely to see you both, and thank you for your support.
Jason Heaton Yeah, thanks a lot. Well, we hope you enjoyed our first Graynado interview with Giles English. Giles, uh, thanks again for taking the time to sit down with us at Baselworld. And, uh, as James mentioned, uh, do send us ideas for future interview subjects. If you have ideas at thegraynadoatgmail.com. Well, let's move into our final notes section of the show. This is where James and I give you recommendations for free or affordable items that you can download, read, purchase, um, checkout. Uh, James, what have you got for us this week?
James Stacy Uh, so I've got two, one kind of product and one video. So the first one is a product I've been using for a while. I'm not reinventing the wheel by suggesting this product, but it's, uh, from a company called Night Eyes and it's their S beaner. So it's like, uh, two carabiners in one kind of with an S of metal. They're really great. They're not for climbing at all. They're like for casual uses, non tool uses typically. They're under $5 and if you want to connect something to a backpack or you want to, I don't know, you could use it for like a million different things. And I realized again when I was hiking yesterday how much I kind of like having one of these. I use one to connect my keys to my bag within a pocket. I use another to kind of leash the strap of that camera bag, the Migo Agua, into the strap of my backpack. so that as I'm walking, the agua is not moving in over my hips where I would then need the camera. I think if you go to the website and you take a look at it, you'll see roughly what I mean, but they come in a bunch of different sizes. You can get ones with like led lights fitted into them so they can work as like a signal light or as like a marker, which is kind of cool. And they've got ones, you know, with beer bottle openers built into them. There's, there's a bunch of different designs. Night eyes makes a really crazy assortment of oddities and gadgets and things. And this is just one of them. I think they're really handy with a little bit of summer adventuring on the way, whether you're diving or hiking or camping or whatever. There's loads of products from Night Eyes that are pretty interesting, and I personally really like the S-Beaners, so check those out. For video, I've been on a bit of a run for car videos, so this is one that if you haven't seen, I think you're going to really enjoy. But my most favorite current car presenter online is Chris Harris. And he used to be with the Drive YouTube channel. Then he went back to Chris Harris on Cars, his own YouTube channel. And now that channel's kind of gone dark because he's going to be on the next generation of BBC's Top Gear. Great driver, great personality, lots of access to cars. You can go on his channel and pick basically any car that you like. But the one I've watched a couple times recently is the F40 versus F50 like you've never seen them before. Show notes, obviously, for the link. But within this, he drives Ferrari's F40 and Ferrari's F50 kind of back to back on a track in the UK. It's beautifully filmed. And you know, these are cars that like I've always loved and check the link and click the video. It's a nice long video again, beautifully shot and just a lot of fun back to back if you like a sports car. Jason, what are you feeling?
Jason Heaton Nice. Well, thanks for the recommendation on the Night Eyes. I'm a big carabiner user and I happen to think the carabiner is like one of the top five product inventions of probably the 20th century. So, so handy for so many uses. On my end, I have another sort of useful slash style gadget. I recently kind of got turned on to this, this guy who he's on Instagram. His company is called Zerner Oceanic and he is a, his last name is Zerner and he's based out in Newport, Rhode Island. big sailing hub out there and he actually works as like a racing yacht or a sailboat rigger. So he actually rigs up sailboats with all their sails and gear. And he was trying to come up with a use for a lot of this sort of high tech rigging material that he uses day in and day out. And he came up with this idea for these wristbands or bracelets I guess you'd call them. And I'm not a big sort of man jewelry guy except for wearing a watch on my left wrist. I just really liked the kind of utilitarian aesthetic of his wristbands. And I got a couple of them in and he makes them out of a material called Dyneema, D-Y-N-E-E-M-A, which is, it's, I don't even know what it's derived from. It's some sort of a synthetic material, but it's, it's 15 times lighter than steel and eight times stronger than steel or vice versa. But it's actually used for rigging a sailboat, for halyards and for lines, and specifically for what they call soft shackles. But you could certainly, in a pinch, use it in concert with a carabiner, for instance. Or you could use it almost as a carabiner, because it actually kind of closes on itself and can be cinched up. I think you could actually, if it's strong enough, you could probably tow a car with it, whatever. But that's not the point of Zerner actually making these. They're actually made as sort of a style accessory, I guess. He kind of leaves half bare Dyneema and then he hand whips the other section and kind of wraps them with a cotton thread of different colors and has like a little brass ring that you close it up with. So I put a couple of photos on my Instagram feed and we'll put a link in the show notes.
James Stacy Yeah, I'm on his website now. These look really cool.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it's cool stuff. Keeping with the sailing theme, I'm on sort of a nautical jag these days. There's a book that I've read. I've probably read it a couple of times. I've owned it for a few years. It's called A Voyage for Mad Men. And it's a book that's actually about the first round the world sailing race in 1969. That was actually sort of a big media frenzy at the time. It happened to be the same year that man first went to the moon. And this British newspaper hosted this contest to pay an exorbitant amount of money for the time for the first person who could solo sail around the world from England back to England. And there were all these mishaps along the way. And it really kind of came down to like two people at the end. All the others had capsized, you know, boats had blown up, you know, masts have broken, whatever. But there was one competitor who was sort of in over his head, so to speak, who signed up for the race and took part. And he ended up sort of duping the system. I don't want to say anymore because you might want to read the book. But the book was also kind of the subject of a movie called Deep Water. So you could check out the movie as well. It might be on Netflix or iTunes. But the book, A Voyage from Mad Men, if you're at all into sort of sailing adventures, it's just a great read. And then finally, I want to give a shout out to some local friends here in the Twin Cities that started up a new vintage watch sales website. These guys are legit. One of the partners is actually a vintage watch retailer that was a kind of a big power user on eBay and he had a shop here in the Twin Cities for a very long time and they're putting up some really great vintage pieces. The business name is Mission Vintage and their website is www.missionvintage.com and they're they're putting up some really cool watches come from you know some of the more affordable sort of old 60s chronographs up to some really nice Rolexes. So give them a look and those are my recommendations for this week.
James Stacy Very cool. Well, as always, thanks so much for listening. Hit the show notes for more details. You can follow us on Instagram. Jason is at Jason Heaton. I am at J.E. Stacey, and you can follow the show at TheGreyNado. If you have any questions, please, please, please write TheGreyNado at gmail.com or hashtag TheGreyNado on Instagram. Please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts or grab the feed from TheGreyNado.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzer via the free music archive.
Jason Heaton And until next time we leave you with this simple quote from the movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, be excellent to each other.