We have a standard Casio Sea Pathfinder watch. It counts down whatever intervals you set it to. It beeps at 2 minutes, 1 minute and 10-9-8.. Works good enough for us, as long as the crew is handling it and tell skipper how much time is left (3 minutes, 2 minutes 1 minute, 45 sec, 30 sec, 20 sec 15 sec. last 10 secs watch is beeping). We much prefer this system instead of having the skipper looking at the watch himself. Skipper need to have his head out of the boat during the start.


Over to your question. We like the option of starting a 5 minute countdown on the 4 minutes flag/sound. I suppose the Ronstan watch can do this.
I have had friends who strapped this watch to the boom loose the watch overboard. Only the strap was left on the boat. This happened twice to the same boat.. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> (dont know if it was operator error, but I dont think so as they are very meticoulous with the boat).