The Boatswain is elegant, subtle, and wildly affordable.
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Ever since their Sun and Moon watch sold out in a snap in 2014, Noah and Timex have nurtured a growing collection of affordable timepieces to cement themselves as one of the most fruitful and popular collaborators in the watch world.
Now, the pair are back with perhaps their most elegant watch yet: the Boatswain. For those of you who didn’t grow up scrubbing the poop deck, a “boatswain”—pronounced “bosun” or “bos’n”—is a senior petty officer on a ship who is in charge of maintenance, operations, crew management, and the like. Like the Anchor watch from earlier this year, the name strikes a nautical to but the Boatswain is cocktail-party ready. The $228 watch is launching October 15th at 11 a.m. EST on Noah's website.
The watch’s Oval shape captures the look of the thin, beloved Golden Ellipse Patek Philippe has made since the 1960s. Noah and Timex have used this shape before, but this dial does away with the lighthouse design and even the moon phase complication for the simplest execution yet. Measuring 31 x 35 mm with an 18mm lug width, the elliptical case comes in steel or gold-tone steel with soft edges, a flat crystal, and a small crown. The dial is pared down to the essentials: an eggshell background is overlaid with black Roman numerals and a black pencil handset. But if you look very closely at what would typically be a railroad-shaped inner minute track on, say, a Cartier Tank, this one is actually shaped like a length of coiled rope, neatly knotting together the watch’s nautical theme.
Powered by a quartz movement and available on a brown leather strap in steel and a black leather strap in gold tone, this is Noah and Timex’s cleanest offering yet—and one of their best-looking. Though 2025’s Lighthouse Watch featured a similar silhouette, this one’s classic dial offers a more restrained take on the partnership’s aesthetic. And at $228, every burgeoning collector fresh to the workforce is almost guaranteed to scoop one up to strap on for work, play, and just about everything else.
The arc of Noah’s Timex projects has been fascinating to watch precisely because they didn’t necessarily resonate widely right off the bat: handsome as the first couple of Weekender-type watches were, they didn’t explode into the popular consciousness with the impact of a sartorial bomb. But ever since the Sun and Moon—followed by the Rectangular Moon Phase Watch, the Lighthouse Watch, Oval Moon Phase Watch, and others—the two brands have been on an absolute tear. Something about the dressier, unisex silhouettes; the playful complications; and the affordability has been right on trend in the watch industry. Plus, it gave younger or more budget-minded collectors the chance to get a taste of the elegant vintage Cartier and Patek Philippe watches that are typically the exclusive province of deep-pocketed buyers.
If Noah founder Brendon Babeznian, a self-professed non-watch guy, has hit upon anything, it seems to be that a great-looking, everyday watch doesn’t need to be a precious heirloom piece that you keep in a safe and only take out for weddings, bar mitzvot, and anniversary dinners. Rather, it can be funky, not too expensive, and nearly perfect.
Oren Hartov is a GQ contributor covering all things horological. He’s written extensively about celebrity watch culture, waxed poetic about the GMT complication, and railed against case sizes larger than 40mm. A graduate of the Berklee College of Music and a military veteran, he can be found playing the guitar, ... Read More