Mark,

I have the small one. That's what I used at Ripley (and helped us acheive such killer starts). It works fine.

If you start it late, you can hit sync and it advances to the next minute. There is also an audible beep each minute and then more beeps during the last minute and a beep a second during the last 10 seconds, so you don't necessarily have to see it but I can see where you would want to see how much time was left. I wish it was louder.

I went with the smaller one due to cost and I use it for more than just sailing.