secretreality

Victorinox Swiss Army Summit XLT Titanium

For some time now, I’ve been keeping my eye out for a good all-around watch that met some specific requirements; reasonable cost, solid brand, easy to read and most importantly- tough. I’m a fairly active guy and while I’m not exactly a participant in an Eco Challenge, I would venture to say that in general I actually subject my gear to equally abusive, if not worse, conditions. I personally prefer things with a Swiss Army knife sort of appeal, fairly non-specialized gear that excels in many conditions but is not necessarily the best at any one in particular. I also really enjoy watches; men essentially don’t really wear jewelry save for a wedding band and a watch and since ideally the wedding band doesn’t change with any real frequency, watches are the one place where we have some freedom to play.

Over the years I’ve played around with a variety of sub-thousand dollar watches, with the bulk of them being under $250. From Timex and Casio to a recently failed Luminox, I’ve run many watches through unintentional torture tests in the backcountry over the years, with a small sampling of dress only watches thrown in for good measure, so I definitely have some strong opinions on what works for me and what doesn’t. Generally speaking, while very tough, Casio’s digital G-Shock watches with their LCD fail have failed me in the field due to extreme heat or cold washing out the display, something which really applies to any LCD watch; on top of the fact that, let’s face it, style-wise digital watches usually leave something to be desired. Even some of the high end LCD watches such as the Suunto’s will suffer from these problems and honestly, they are just overly complicated as in my opinion a watch is for telling the time- I’ll use my GPS for elevation, compass and altimeter; which leaves me with analog watches.

While there are higher end analogs that are quite nice: Tag, Rolex, Omega, et al. I could not bring myself to subject a 10k Rolex to some of the beatings that the bulk of my watches must endure. Additionally, as a high power rifleman, the recoil of a large caliber round would wreak havoc on the fine inner works of any automatic watch, regardless of price, which also helps narrow down the search. Finally, while I have a small selection of watches to choose from, I generally find that I fall back to one watch I wear most of the time. It is dressy enough to wear to the office but rugged enough to wear into the backcountry on any of the types of trips I enjoy without the fear that it might fail; which brings us to the Victorinox Swiss Arrmy Summit XLT titanium watch.

I personally prefer watches with a Swiss movement, they are accurate and I can count on them to be reliable. Unfortunately not all makers are the same and after the watch that I thought had fit the bill perfectly as my general from the office to the backwoods watch had failed to hold water out after a few kayaking trips and fogged over, a new search began. With my known requirements in mind I started looking around for a replacement and stumbled across the Swiss Army XLT. Already a huge fan of the knives from the same maker, I felt safe sinking a few bucks into one of these watches and after finding the exceptional deal at Sierra Trading Post, I’m glad I did.

The XLT is a slight departure from the modern trend of gargantuan watch faces, which I personally find ridiculous anyway, with its more traditional face size of 28.6mm. The pins are driven in quite solidly and you will find the band will need to be adjusted by a jeweler, unless you happen to have the right tools at home, it isn’t like sizing most low-mid range watches. Though I’m not a diver, the watch does have a second clasp which allows the band to be opened up enough to be worn comfortably on the outside of a wetsuit which will prove useful when ocean kayaking in a wetsuit. Double clasp aside, the standard clasp holds tightly and securely leaving no fear of the watch coming loose. Overall the XLT has a very nice build quality, everything lines up nice and neatly, the design is solid and it is a fine example of excellent craftsmanship. The watch has a screw-in sealed case back which affords a water resistance rating up to 100m, in spite of the fact that the crown does not screw down.

The multilink titanium band offers a little lateral play by design, making it very comfortable to wear as it adjusts slightly during those times when it slides up the wrist closer to the hand. It has luminous hands and hour markers as well as a luminous mark at the top of the bezel to signify the starting point when used as a one hour timer and they do hold their charge quite well, as checking the time at 4am after the watch has been in total darkness for 7 hours has proven and as a side note, they also recharge quite quickly. The one directional ratcheting bezel is made of a tough plastic of some sort with the numbers being painted on in a slightly recessed groove, something which will certainly help prevent wear and make the eventual repainting simple. The bezel is relatively tight, though not overly so and I suspect it will loosen up a bit with use. Thanks to the titanium casing and band, the watch is also exceptionally light when compared to a stainless steel watch and is a pleasure to wear as you sometimes forget it is even there, especially if you are used to heavy stainless watches.

I personally chose the model with the black face and white numbers which is very easy to read, with the time in both standard 12hr and military 24hr format just to the inside of the larger 12hr format numbers. The 3 has been replaced with the date which is in a nice location for easy reading as I find the watches that put the date to some sort of diagonal to annoy me and the 12 is replaced by an artfully designed Swiss Army logo, giving the watch a similar look to a certain popular Tag Heur watch. The mineral crystal should also prove mostly resilient to scratches due to the inevitable knocking around of the timepiece and if you’ll forgive the pun, only time will tell.

Though it has only been through a few small trials to date, I have yet to find any real fault with the watch. I did need to ever so slightly adjust the main and double clasps so that they would grip a bit tighter, but that took only the slightest bit of effort and I would honestly consider that a part of the sizing process. From a strictly cosmetic point of view, some may find fault with the minute hand, which, while going through the ticking process does not always land exactly on the minute mark in question, though the watch holds accurate time and it does in fact tick 60 times through each minute. I cannot speak as to why this is, but it does not appear to affect the accuracy of its timekeeping in any way.

Overall the watch offers all of the things I was looking for and one thing that made the purchase quite painless is the simple fact that before the model was discontinued, the Summit XLT retailed for $325. In the end, the XLT is tough enough to take outback and classy enough to wear to the office. While I wouldn’t wear it with a tux, for the bulk of my ‘normal’ life at work and at play, this watch will adorn my wrist.

I've probably watched too much Star Trek over the years and while I'd like to believe that the majority of people out there instantly get the aural imagery of Patrick Stewart's voice as Captain Picard, as I do, whenever they hear a monologue starting with "captain's log...", I have a feeling I'm relegated to the minority of the general populace on that one, but don't mention that to the Trekkies. But hey, the tie-in isn't just there for the Trek fans, a real quick little bit of association, six degrees of separation or whatever you'd like to call it ties things together neatly just the same. I named my kayak the Pequod after the whaling ship in Moby Dick and Patrick Stewart played Ahab in the 1998 TV movie of Moby Dick, which I unfortunately never did get to see.

The Pequod is an Ocean Kayak Prowler 15; the 15 in the title is also the designation of length as she's a 15 foot vessel. While her actual dimensions are an excellent touring length of 15'5", she's a bit on the "portly" side as far as kayaks are concerned at 28.5" wide, but that provides her with excellent overall stability and the ability to carry a massive 450lb overall load with a good deal of available space in both the large rear tankwell and the spacious front hatch. With the large hatch and tankwell, excellent load carrying capacity and stability, all I had to do was toss in a fishing pole and this sit on top was the perfect kayak for me.

Make no mistake, she's no racing skeg by any means, but she is indeed a pretty fast kayak once you've got her going, plus I'm a huge fan of the SOT (Sit On Top) design. I'd gone on a few rafting and canoing trips over the years and as someone who really enjoys getting out and away from the crazy life in the urban sprawl, I had always carried a secret lust for a kayak or canoe of my own for not only day trips, but weekend overnighters and eventually week-long river camping expeditions. As luck would have it, late last year it turned out that the perfect kayak for me was just on the horizon.

As winter approached last season, I happened to be perusing the REI outlet website looking for hiking/camping gear when I stumbled into the water sports section. When I saw the specs and price on the Prowler 15 "seconds" (which turned out to be nothing more than some black scuff marks which I wiped off the day I brought her home) they had listed, I did some research of user reviews and confirmed that it was indeed the ship I had been waiting for. With the price being less than half of the regular cost it and with the ability to not pay shipping by having it trucked to the local REI made this more than just a great deal and the money I saved on the overall price paid for things like a PFD and paddle.

I remember when I first picked her up, what a fiasco that was. I showed up with my Jeep Cherokee with the plan to just throw her on the factory rack upside down and lash her down well with rope. After a lot of pressure and persuading from the local REI staff I purchased some foam blocks to cradle the yak right side up on the roof (still in the cardboard and plastic wrapping), turning out to be a total mistake, which lead to a somewhat eventful ride home that was both unpleasant and unnerving to say the least. I of course found some amusement when it came time to move the yak again to our new house as loading it on the roof of the Cherokee with a couple pool noodles on the crossbars and simply lashing it down proved to be an extremely stable (and essentially free) method of transportation.

With the Cherokee on the way out and the Rover being the new mode of transportation I had to look into commercial carriers and settled on the Thule system. Strong and stable, it carries the yak well, though the overall height does make it a little bit of a challenge to load and unload however I'm working out a system fashioned out of PVC pipes to resolve that issue, so I'll hopefully have more on that topic later.

Finally a warm weekend was in sight while rain clouds were not so it was time to get her out on the water. With wife in hand, we headed for the local lake to get in some boating and fishing time, but alas as we arrived quite early, the kayak rental shop was not yet open. The bait shop however did have canoes and paddle boats for rent and while my recommendation was to go with the canoe, my wife wanted to try a paddle boat. Big, stable and unfortunately insanely slow, she did still have a great time on the water. I'd never actually ridden one of those myself and I knew they were slow, but I had no idea just how slow. Though she was pedaling away and likely going as fast as the boat could take her, a few gentle paddle strokes had me surging 15, then 20 then 30 yards away. I slowed my pace so we could stay near each other and even tried attaching her to my yak so I could tow her for a bit, but that was just too much work. After unhooking I decided to paddle out a ways and see what was ahead, before coming back I hooked up my rod & line so I could troll as I returned. Staying by her side I eyeballed her paddle boat a bit closer and while not the greatest watercraft out there, it certainly looked like it would also be fun. There was a large platform on the back that the dog could sit on and it was designed for two, I'll have to keep that in mind for future play around trips.

While fishing as the day progressed, the Northwesterly winds started to pick up and I realized just how much I was going to need to make some sort of drift anchor. No problem, just added that to the list of things I'd like to add/design/buy for the yak, that and a sail. It sure would have been nice to take advantage of that wind on the return trip to the docks. Make that 10001 things you can do with PVC pipe, design is in progress. Anyway, all in all it was a great day out and I was glad to get a chance to do a little fishing, even if the only thing I actually got was wet. :)