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Lost my 945 during in swimming triathlon race

Hi all,

Yesterday had my race where I started with the front group on the swim. As we all know, that gets messy quickly. In the first buoy scramble, someone managed to yank my watch out during his/her swim stroke.

I'm super disappointed the watch fell apart that easily and dropped to the bottom of the ocean. Has anyone ever experienced this? Should garmin look into making stronger straps? More reliable? If they advertise a watch for triathlon, we all know what happens during buoy turnarounds...

Anyone has any advice on how to avoid this? Put it under wet suit seems what comes to mind. I still find garmin needs to work on their strap strength. Losing a $700 product and race data like that is not pleasant

  • Put your phone into a sealed bag and dive to the position where you lost the 945. Now try to search it with the connect app. Maybe you can hear the beeping in the water and you can get it back.

  • connection will not working underwater

  • You want to hear a low volume beep under water that sits at the bottom of the ocean? I don't think so...probably the connection won't even work under water.

  • Maybe your strap was already damaged or slightly broken, I don't see how this could happen with my watch - even if I pull the strap intentionally, it would require quite some power to rip it off my arm. The strap is attached to the watch via screws and they don't fall out that easily.

  • I hear you, but the watch was pretty new. I got a new one now. And testing the strap strength, I dont think is out of the realm of possibilities to pull it. If I apply some pulling strength, I can see the screws giving. So, I'd say during the scramble in the water someone could have definitely applied enough strength and pulled it way. Either that, or somehow it managed to remove it from the attachment just right. 

    Regardless, I've heard of other triathletes dealing with the same using the same watch. 

  • Ok, I didn't mean to say that it's impossible but I would think quite some power is required to rip it off. I'm not taking part in swimming races so I can't really say what's going on there. Just my thoughts when I look at my own watch and strap. Not sure how Garmin could fix this though - it's still better to have your watch ripped off than being injured (like when it would be a metal cord).