Do You Sailors All Keep Logbooks ?

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by osirissail

what are you going to do next year when the expected solar CME events wipe out or disable your phones, pads and other high tech whizbang stuff?

I'm gunna whistle dixey to the idiots who ripped the world off in their Y2K fraud.

[S/V Alchemy]

Yes, I do, mainly to log maintenance tasks discovered and (usually) remedied.

I also track spares consumption, and my log contains separate lists of what is kept where, and the location of safety gear. Everything is predicated on some newbie to the boat being the only person conscious and being unable to ask the skipper anything for some time.

The actual "log" portion is filed away each month.

[zeehag]

my log ios intermittent at best and i try to write in it while underway. is written in invisible ink so it wont get wet and disappear. i wont put online as my puters sukk and when wet work even more poorly. when boat has a wet moment will you guys still have a log?

[Khagan1227]

Still use the old fashioned pen and paper log, but it works and needs no batteries.

[57guy]

I would like to find a good iPad Boating App.
I have boating Suite, but it needs work.
GP

[sailcruiser]

Originally Posted by 57guy

I would like to find a good iPad Boating App.
I have boating Suite, but it needs work.
GP

I just picked up Sailbook but it is confusing. I'm sure it will be fine once I figure it out. I do keep a normal paper log and use the electronic one for my shorthand.

SC

[Cheechako]

Yeah, diligently for the first couple of weeks of my trip.... then suddenly I'm on "island time" and the log disappears into the nav table....

[57guy]

Originally Posted by sailcruiser

I just picked up Sailbook but it is confusing. I'm sure it will be fine once I figure it out. I do keep a normal paper log and use the electronic one for my shorthand.

SC

I saw it listed in the app store, but the description was weak and I didn't know if it did what I wanted. I have a MY and want engine times logs, oil changes, fuel, guest etc
I wish you could get a free trial in apps. I bought so many that I deleted right after I tried them.
GP

[hoppy]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

I'm gunna whistle dixey to the idiots who ripped the world off in their Y2K fraud.

Why are they idiots, they made the money. The idiots are the people who believed them and those who paid up

Y2k would have been real if we had not spent so much effort making sure there were no problem.


I had not even thought about filling in my logbook the past week I have been sailing.

[sailcruiser]

Originally Posted by 57guy

I saw it listed in the app store, but the description was weak and I didn't know if it did what I wanted. I have a MY and want engine times logs, oil changes, fuel, guest etc
I wish you could get a free trial in apps. I bought so many that I deleted right after I tried them.
GP

I don't think Sailbook would fit the need. It looks more like 'I went A to B with sails up' and details if I can make it work. I'd love to find the same.

[Astrid]

I keep a bound paper logbook, numbered pages, entries written with waterproof india ink.

[boden36]

I have kept a log aboard Nekeyah for the past 25 years, but in an informal kind of way noting anything relevant to the situation at hand, and logging any boat usage.
Another log is kept for the engine service.
Apart from its practical application, after that time, it is really interesting and satisfying to look back at where you were and what you were up to in the 1980's!

Regards,
Richard.

[Strygaldwir]

When we started cruising we did not have a chart plotter. So we got used to writing all our fixes (Every hour) in a log book. A fix consisted of date/time, Lat, Long, Speed and true heading. We wrote it in the book cause plotting it on the chart was just making the charts more and more confusing. Since we had the book, we also wrote significant events in it. Where we anchored, impressions, maintenance, folks we met. Kind of became a short journal. Nothing formal, except the fixes.

Skip a head a couple of years, were are sailing back from Turks and Caicos, headed back to the Bahamas. I smell something burning, my wife, who is on watch calls me and says she just lost all instruments, including the chart plotter. No autopilot, anometer, depth, GPS, nothing. Engine is still running. I head down to the engine room. Hmm... smoke, not a lot, but enough to know something not good has happened. I go up above, take the log, tell her steer a course, (Since then we have included another column, heading magnetic) continue on while I find the problem.

First issue, our fuseable link to our battery bank is fried. REAL glade I had that, almost as glad I have spares! Check the first engine room, the one with the smoke. Seems like someone, the captain, who will remain nameless, tightened the bolt that connects the engine to the electrical buss. While doing so, he pulled the connection so that it was sitting on the solenoid for the starter. Vibration caused the insulation to wear through, shorted to the solenoid and basically ran the starter till it fried and took the fused link with it.

If we did not have the paper log, we would have had issue with where we were, and which way we needed to go. Fortunately, it only took about an hour to get the electrical systems back up. It did give me an accute appreciation of how tentative electric systems can be and how having backups can be invaluable.

[SimonV]

Thats why you should always carry a hand held GPS.

[Albro359]

A hand held GPS, and maybe a spare, and batteries, and a paper logbook, and extra pens and pencils, and paper charts, glue, and rulers, erasers, spare notepads, nuts and bolts, fuses, bits of wire, tape, sailcloth, hanks, shackles, blocks, rope.............. and KNOW WHERE THEY ALL ARE!