True Tested: Meet the New Marathon Watch OSAR-D
Marathon Watch & SHARP
Marathon Watch may well be one of the best kept secrets in the world of tool watches; we’ll forgive you if you didn’t know this Canadian watch company that’s been in the business since 1939. They may not be quite as flashy as some of the other luxury watch brands out there, but there’s good reason for that. Marathon started building watches for the Allied Forces in 1941, and continue to focus on timepieces for both Military and SAR (search and rescue) applications to this day. They’re even an official supplier for several Canadian and US government defence units, and have been for quite some time.
The OSAR-D is the brand’s latest release — a revival of a design first issued to Canadian SAR technicians in the early 2000s. Marathon kept the original design largely unchanged, only making a handful of technical improvements where new components were available to further improve on its already robust design. Unlike this new release, the original version (the SAR-D) was never sold publicly, making original examples quite scarce. Further to that, it was sold at a time where none of Marathon’s watches were on offer to the public. It wasn’t until the GSAR (government search and rescue) was released shortly thereafter that watch enthusiasts could get their hands on these watches without working in one of the various service regiments.
That original SAR-D has a unique origin story, not only on account of being a design commissioned by the Canadian Armed Forces, but also because of how Marathon approached its design. While the base specification needs — water resistance, luminous indices, and a bezel that could be manipulated wearing heavy gloves — Marathon actually tapped an early online community known as Military Watch Resource to further help guide their design process. In turn they ended up with a watch that tips its hat to a range of notable military-spec tool watches, without feeling derivative or over-designed.
Like its siblings, the new OSAR-D is a simple, legible, and rugged timepiece built with both durability and performance in mind. There’s no “reinventing the wheel” going on here. The typical hallmarks of a tool/dive watch are all present — a brushed stainless steel case, a chunky unidirectional timing bezel, large hour indices, and a healthy application of luminous material to ensure good visibility in low light situations. Regarding the latter, Marathon uses its own proprietary material known as MaraGlo, which was developed years ago to ensure it can keep glowing for 3-5 hours.
Its self-winding movement remains Swiss, this time a Sellita SW200-1 with improved shock resistance and accuracy thanks to an Incabloc shock absorber system. The design of its crystal and date-magnifying cyclops lens have been improved over the original model, as has its rubber strap, which is offered as an alternative to its steel bracelet. Capable of 300m of water resistance, the OSAR-D measures a reasonable 41mm across and 14mm thick; if it was trying to be more of a dressy daily-wear piece we’d be looking for a slightly thinner profile, but that’s not the goal here. Looking at the profile of the case, half its height is taken up by its timing bezel to suit its functional needs, so it’s a case of form following function.
Despite its heavy duty build spec, being in the armed forces or being a hardcore adventurer is by no means a determining factor as to whether or not you should be looking to purchase the OSAR-D. When you read the marketing materials for any other dive watch out there, they’ll paint an equally robust picture of their watches, but at the end of the day most wearers aren’t engaged in any of these types of activities. That said, it’s nice to know that your watch can survive anything you can throw at it, and this is made that much more interesting by Marathon’s Canadian roots and rich history. There isn’t a brand out there with a proven track record like this, and that on its own says more than any ad campaign ever can.
Learn more about the Marathon OSAR-D here.
