July 19th, 2024 | Words and photography by DAHTT
The nuclear option.
The Marathon MSAR Arctic.
Many people won't be familiar with the Canadian - Marathon Watch Company. In fact they're possibly better known in "everyday carry" circles than they are in the watch community. The brands origins can be found in the Weinstrum Watch company, founded in 1904. It was in 1939 that the Marathon moniker first appeared and two years later Marathon was a supplier of watches to the US armed forces. The watches are now designed in Canada and manufactured in Switzerland. The MSAR I'm looking at today is from the Search And Rescue line of watches, made to strict USAF and NATO military specifications.
Marathon are probably best known for the way they do lume'. Rather than applied luminous material, many Marathon watches contain tiny glass tubes filled with radioactive isotopes, which glow as the radioactive material decays. This approach came about when the US armed forces required a watch which was visible in the dark without the necessity to "charge" the lume' with a light source. The glass tubes, present on the dial and hands of their watches take up quite a lot of real estate, resulting in a very deeply dished dial. The aesthetic created by this generously recessed dial has become somewhat of a trademark design for Marathon since its adoption.
Marathon first appeared on my radar with the larger, black dial variant of the Search And Rescue line. I was fascinated by the history and the development of the watch, but at 42mm it was much too large for my wrist. The Medium Search And Rescue or "MSAR" is 36mm, and I was concerned that was perhaps too small for a watch with a dive bezel.
Watch size is a very subjective, preferential sort of thing. Personally I'm reasonably traditional. If the watch has a rotating bezel I like 38mm - 40mm, if it's a sports or dress watch with a slimmer fixed bezel I prefer a 35mm - 38mm. The MSAR with its rotating dive time bezel fell outside of my preferred size range, so I'd never seriously considered it, but I should have done. It's very compact. If you have a wrist over six and a half inches I would venture to say you'd be better off trying the 42mm SAR, but on my very diminutive wrist it fits wonderfully, managing to be both chunky and subtle simultaneously.
I do have some issues with the MSAR though. The 120 click bezel feels un-uniform. The resistance you feel when rotating the bezel differs as it travels throughout 360 degrees. It doesn't greatly affect the functionality, other than creating the need to pay a little more attention if you're aiming for a specific minute to set it to. In my opinion this sort of cheap feeling action is unacceptable on a watch in this price range. Watches costing half as much have more premium feeling bezel actions and this really lets the MSAR down.
My second issue is the very thing these watches are best known for. The lume'. This isn't so much the watches fault, more the result of every shot I've ever seen of the lume' on social media has been edited to such an extent that I was expecting a much brighter glow. In reality, the lume' glows more dimly than most traditionally lumed watches. It's adequate, but not the light show I was prepared for.
The dial design is maybe a tad cluttered. The double branding seems unnecessary, and the date placement isn't entirely satisfying, but that's it for bad points, everything else is marvellous.
The way this watch feels is its greatest attribute. I get the impression that I could dropkick it off the side of a hill and everything would be fine. For all the bezel action is lacking, the bezel grip is phenomenal. The screw down crown is a joy to use, I'd venture to say it's possible to unscrew it whilst wearing gloves.
The MSAR is greater than the sum of its parts. It has a feeling of solidity which is similar to that of a G-shock, but it manages to be both smaller and feel more substantial than a G-shock. That's its party trick. It shouldn't be possible but somehow the MSAR achieves it.
Would I pay the approximate £1000 RRP for the Marathon MSAR? No, I wouldn't actually. I stumbled on this one on eBay with no bids on it. I bought it for the £350 reserve and for that money it's acceptable. Would I buy it if I was serving in the military? No, I'd buy a G-shock. The MSAR is a watch full of contradictions. Small but substantial, fun but serious, considered but flawed. All of those contradictions make it difficult to recommend, but they also make it really quite interesting.