Freestyle Stealth Tide 3.0 watch

Test Review Series by Kathryn Doiron

Edited by Ken Bigelow

Last updated on January 3rd, 2010

Freestyle Tide 3.0

Review Status: Completed

Product Information:

Manufacturer	Freestyle
Website	http://www.freestyleusa.com/
MSRP	$110 USD
Material	polyurethane strap, stainless steel top plates
Colors available:	Black

Watch in time mode

Product Description

The Freestyle Stealth Tide 3.0 watch is a watch geared for the water sports enthusiast. This is a low key watch giving lots of information in a well designed manner and in a small package. The watch has tides pre-programmed in for 75 beaches around the world for the next 15 years. The beaches are broken down into geographic regions making it easier to scroll through an area rather than all 75 presets. A small graphic on the left side of the watch shows whether the tide is currently rising or falling. Hitting the tide button gives more information at the top of the screen with the next H or L tide, time expected and height in either feet or meters. The watch time can be set in either AM/PM mode or 24 hour mode. The tide height can also be set in feet or meters depending on preference. Other preferences include an hourly beep and a button beep as well as a big time feature that shows an animated shark fin each minute.

USA West Coast	USA West Coast	USA East Coast
- Huntingt CA - Trestles CA - Oceansd CA - La Jolla CA - Humboldt CA - Ocean B CA - Mvricks CA - St. Cruz CA - Morro B. CA - Pismo B. CA	- Gaviota CA - Rincon CA - Ventura CA - Malibu CA - Redondo CA - Anchorag Alaska - Elliot B Seattle - Seaside Oregon - Newport Oregon	- Sebastn Inlet FL - N. Miami Bch, FL - St. Aug florida - Hamptn H NH - Nauset H Cape Cod - Montauk LI, NY - Manasqn, NJ - Atl City, NJ - Ocean Ct, Maryland - Rehoboth Delaware - Virginia Bch, VA - C. Hattrs, NC - Wrightsv Bch, NC - Myrtle Bch, SC
USA Hawaii	USA Gulf Coast	Caribb Islands
- Haleiwa Oahu - Hanalei, Kauai - Banyans Big Isl - Ma’alaea, Maui - Lahaina Maui - Sandy B Oahu	- Pnma Cty Florida - Naples Florida - Galvestn Texas - Corp Chr Texas	- San Juan P Rico - Bdgetown Barbados
Canada	Mexico	Central America
- Tofino, BC	- Prt Escn Oaxaca - Mazatlan Sinaloa - Ensenada Baja	- Pta Arns Cst Rica - Cristobl Panama - Libertad El Salv
Pacific Islands	Oceania	South America
- Teahup, Tahiti - Tavarua Fiji - Agana Guam	- Sydney Australia - Bells B Australia - Marg Rvr Australia - Phlp Isl Australia - Newcstle Australia - Raglan N Zealnd - Hobart Tazmania	- Rio de J Brazil - Floriano Brazil
Europe	Asia	South Africa
- Bordeaux France - Ferrol Spain - Newquay UK - Portrush Ireland - Canary Island	- Bali Indonesia - Le Port Reunion - Muroto Japan - Irago Japan - Maizuru Japan	- Durban S Africa

Freestyle tide/time setting

The watch is water tight to 330 ft (100 m), and also features a heat timer (15, 20, 25, 30, and 35 minutes), two time modes, chronograph, and 2 alarms. The buttons are all covered with a soft rubber. The band has many holes to accommodate different wrist sizes. Both bands have holes which allows for breathability. The buckle is a solid metal buckle with a wide flat tongue to fit through the wide holes in the band. Instructions are provided in several major languages. The time shows the current date and day of the week. The day of the week is also available in several languages and the date is changeable to conform to different standards of either mm/dd/yy, dd/mm,yy, or yy/mm/dd.

Freestyle tide mode

The watch is all black, the strap, the buckle and the face. Most watches will fill in the pixels to create the number. This watch seems to fill in all the pixels except the ones to create the number. As such, the watch face is black and the back light display highlights through the empty pixels. The watch comes with 5 buttons, four around the outside and one on the bottom of the face. The front button toggles between the tide and the time and moves forward though menu options or tide data. The light button (top right) toggles the light on for 3 seconds. The reset button (bottom right) toggles between T1 and T2, it also scrolls backwards through any menu options or tide data. Holding set (top left) for more than 2 seconds will enter the setup menu for either tide or time, otherwise the button does nothing on pressing. Mode (bottom left) scrolls between the various alarms, tide and timer modes.

Initial Impressions

I was impressed with the small and simple design of the watch. This watch packs a lot of features in a small package and in a well thought out manner. The main time function features a small tide graphic and it is easy to toggle between the time and tide feature on the main time page. The time was relatively easy to set. It was just a matter of following the detailed instructions and deciding on a time format. The watch has an auto feature for Day Light Saving time which I selected. It is possible to select yes or no as well.

Freestyle band

The fit of the watch is nice. The band is a little stiff right now so the watch face sits a little off to the side on my wrist. But the watch face is relatively low profile, and is not a large face. I seem to have full wrist motion available. I generally wear my watch face on the inside of my wrist. This watch does not feel overly bulky when worn there. At first I thought the watch was heavier than my all metal watch, but after wearing the watch, it feels lighter.

The main time normally shows the date at the top, toggling changes the date to the next tide time, with an L or H as well as height. So far the instructions have been easy to use. I had to set the time for my time zone and find the closest beach to me for the tides. I did discover while setting the beach that it is possible to set a custom beach. This is done by selecting the beach closest to me, then I find the time difference in the tides (found online) and I can tell the watch to add or subtract that amount of time for my custom location. I then have 16 characters (with numbers and symbols) to give a custom name. Being located in DC I am between Ocean City, MD and Virginia Beach, VA. I chose Ocean City then went online to determine the tide time difference. I found that Ocean City had three different locations, comparing the next tide with that programmed into the watch determined that the watch used the fishing pier as its location. The time difference was almost one hour. The watch only does 10 minute increments so I set the watch to add 1 hour to the Ocean City tide time to give me the tide in the DC area. I tend to paddle on the Potomac tidal basin most of the time with trips to other areas further away. It looks like the watch can hold up to 9 favorite locations, so I will explore this further to see if I can add all the local beaches in my area.

Scrolling through the mode to tide mode informs me of what beach I have selected before displaying the date, and the next tide details (LO or HI plus time and height). When I press on the tide button, it scrolls through the future tides with date. Hitting mode brings me back to time. While setting any feature on the watch, remaining on a screen without pressing any button for more than 120 seconds will cause the watch to time out and go back to the main time screen. I noticed this when I was trying to figure out how to set a custom tide. The watch has many little features that I am still learning about. I did read through some of the directions but not all. The instructions were not complicated to follow, were detailed and informative. I did discover that T1 and T2 can have different dates. So for my sanity I set both time modes to have the same date as I was accidentally in T2 with the wrong date, which was confusing.

Care Instructions:

It is recommended in the instructions to wash the watch in clean water after use in salt water. It is also recommended to have the watch pressure checked yearly and have it refurbished every 2-3 years replace worn gaskets and seals. It is not recommended to try to open the watch as it can compromise the gaskets and seals.

On Water Use

My first couple of trips out where white water trips, for about 2 hours on the water. Only for one of these trips did I actually need the tide function. I was running the Virginia side of Little Falls. The height of the tide actually affects the last part of the rapid. A low tide creates a larger pour over while a high tide washes out much of the pour over. In this case as we were making the run we wanted to hit the last rapid at low tide. Having the watch with me meant we could time things nicely ahead of time and set up for a low tide run.

I took the watch with me on a sea kayaking trip to the Chesapeake Bay. I had programmed in a custom tide to Annapolis Maryland using online tide charts. Setting up a custom tide is easier after setting up the first one. I also found it is possible to set up multiple custom locations but there doesn’t seem to be a quick way to switch between them. In order to switch location, I have to ’set’ the tide to a new location, rather than just scroll through a preset list. Setting the tide for points along the Chesapeake Bay seems to be a challenge. I thought I had the tide set, but when I scrolled through a few tides to check that they lined up correctly I found that in some cases the tide was off by as much as two hours. Talking to someone about this, I found that this was because the Chesapeake watershed pours a lot of water into the bay and skews the tides. It was handy to know that we were leaving approximately at high tide and coming back at approximate low tide.

Broken Button

My next trip out was to Bar Harbor Maine for a sea kayaking assessment. I needed to know the tides and weather each day of the training and for the assessment so having the watch preset with Bar Harbor as a custom tide was one less thing to worry about. Unfortunately, I discovered that one of the rubber buttons had starting peeling back and the seal was compromised. I ended up not wearing the watch but rather kept it in my dry bag for the tide feature and wore another watch for the time. While the tide watch was still useful for the tide, having it in the dry bag decreased its usefulness.

So far the watch has been of great use. It is handy to know immediately when the tide will be and requires very little up front planning. As long as I know the time offset from a pre-programmed point I can set the tide on the fly. I was sad to see that the button had peeled back and the seal had been broken. I am not sure how this happened, if the seal was initially loose or if I caught the button on something while setting up camp.

More on water use and wear

The next trip out with this watch was a paddle on the Chesapeake Bay by Mayo Beach. The conditions were choppy but not too rough, enough to give the intermediate students a small challenge. Due to the teaching nature of the class I not only had the tide watch along for reference but I also consulted the tide tables to make sure I was correct in my timing. The watch was off just a little, not enough to create any issues but I wanted to be precise when teaching to the class. Due to the nature of the Chesapeake Bay, the tides do not line up on the usual 6 hour cycle. There are large bodies of water that feed into the Chesapeake Bay that the tides are skewed. The watch comes close enough for one tide then is off by about an hour on the next tide then off again on the middle tide, comes back to within an hour on the next tide then lines back up again on the last tide of the set.

I took a 5 day training and assessment class in the Washington DC area. The class consisted of 2 days on a pond, one day on the Chesapeake Bay and 2 days out on the ocean near Assateague Island. I used the tide watch on all 5 days of the assessment and training. The conditions on the first 2 days were calm. I already had the watch set for tide conditions along the area of the Chesapeake Bay where we were paddling, May Beach. It was a simple matter of setting the preprogrammed tide as the main tide to display while out on the water.

The fourth day was very rough conditions with 6-8 ft (1.8 – 2.4 m) ocean swells, 4-6 ft (1.2 – 1.8 m) breaking waves and about 18 knots of wind once we got ocean side. This day saw a lot of activity with current work, waves and rescues. I had the watch set for the Assateague Island tide station. The tide in the area is about right but the current is off. Again due to large bodies of water pouring through narrow insets, the current doesn’t hit maximum flow until almost the end of the tide cycle. In this case, near low tide was when we experienced the maximum flow of water out of the inlet. On the beach area the tides lined up with the tide setting on the watch. The last day out saw some current work and much easier conditions. We did some surfing and landings as well as rolling and rescues. Waves were about 2-3 ft (0.6 – 0.9 m) along the sea wall.

Wear

The watch was replaced for another watch with a functional button cover. The watch has held up over the last two months nicely and I haven’t noticed any further issues with the button cover. Due to wearing a dry suit on the last few trips, I strapped the watch to my PFD strap rather than around my wrist. It is too tight of a fit around my wrist given the amount of material in the dry suit cuff. The watch straps nicely to my PFD and it is easily accessible. I also notice I am less likely to accidentally press buttons switching to another mode.

Wrap-up

The watch has managed to mostly keep up with me whether in white water conditions or while sea kayaking. The unique conditions around the DC area has made it a challenge to test the timing of the tides programmed into the watch. When I programmed in the Chain Bridge location along the Potomac River in Maryland, I had the most accurate predictions of the tide. The Chesapeake Bay has a skewed tide due to the amount of water feeding into the bay as the tide drains out. I did find that the tides were pretty close along the ocean side at Assateague in Maryland. The same thing was observed in Maine. Although there are lots of little islands, the tide in Maine was pretty close to actual tides.

Summary

Pros

– large display with intuitive information display

– water proof

– easy access information

Cons

– no button lock

– dark display sometimes hard to read in low light

Personal Information:

Name	Kathryn Doiron
Age	33
Gender	Female
Height	5′ 8″ (1.7 m)
Weight	150 lb (68 kg)
Email	kathryn ‘at’ kayakgearreviews ‘dot’ org
Website	http://kayakergirl.blogspot.com/
Location	DC, MD, VA area

Paddling Bio: I started seriously kayaking in the summer of 2007 and bought an Impex Force Category 4 as my first real boat that fall. I started whitewater kayaking in the summer of 2008 and now have a Jackson Classic Fun. I now enjoy white water, flat water, ocean surfing and sea kayaking and look forward to getting more into rafting. I tend to get out on the water several times a week during the height of the kayaking season. I have even paddled with the Ice Pirates at the height of winter. I am hoping to do a three month expedition trip in the following year.

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