Optimum big up.

Nice to hear. Mine was borrowed by offspring and dropped in the lake before it got the chance for the battery to run low.

Because my performance is so poor split second start timing makes little difference. Because of this I wear a cheap analog watch waterproof to 50m. I just look at the sweep second hand when the bell goes and remember it. 20 sec after the hour or whatever. The advantage is that I wear the same watch all the time and never take it off (except for weddings or funerals when I wear my fake Rolex). My present watch is a Casio all black resin thing waterproof to 100m. which cost about 18 quid I think. Battery goes then I bin them and get another one.

I have a cheap countdown watch which is fine but... the first warning always seems to happen when I'm mid tack, so I miss it by a few seconds.... And my club has a pursuit fetish, and I can never work out which horn is my start!!

It'll be easier once I have the Frosty finished.... my start in a pursuit will always be the first one!

Waterproof stop watch from eBay, Velcro .  You can get the lot with change from £6.

In the days when these things used to matter and I gave tactical talks on the subject, I used to point out that in a hundred strong start line you can lose potentially 99 places in the first second delay. Now stop for a second at windward mark you might not even lose one place.
I even went to the lengths of working out the potential place loss that a second delay can count for in the first third of the beat as against the final third, according to the rule of thirds that breaks a fleet of sailing things up, but it was a long time ago now and things are quite different in these mixed boat fleets on small lakes, but I still cannot go to a start line without a functioning countdown time piece or I'd have a nervous breakdown.