Digital Log Books

[bergius]

Originally Posted by wholybee

I doubt that going digital will help with consistency. I find it helps to share the duties such that the person coming off watch is responsible for a log entry. The person coming on watch can then remind them/ask them of it, and it is part of the changing of the watch communication. It keeps you accountable.

I'm experimenting with digital logbooks now. The system I built for Signal K has some automations to do the "regular" entries (stuff like engine started/stopped, beginning/ending trips, hourly position reports).



And of course benefit of this kind of system is that you can make the log entries from anywhere on the boat. So no need to leave the cockpit to make an entry.



This is a new system and we've only tested it with a couple of daysails so far. This summer's five month cruise will be a much bigger test. Let's see how the logbook looks after that.

[Shayamoya]

Hi all just following up on this thread to find out if any Android users found a functional app for logbook purposes i.e. sailing passages and also engine hours etc? I'm also looking for something that can be exported into the likes of excel. @Bergius I'd be interested to know how you went with your trial earlier in the year?

[bergius]

Originally Posted by Shayamoya

@Bergius I'd be interested to know how you went with your trial earlier in the year?

It went pretty well. The automations meant that we had a decent logging even of simple day sails where normally I might not have bothered to write logs. And since everybody in the crew could add entries with their own phone, we have a lot more observations and happenings logged than on previous cruises.

On passage I really liked being able to browse the logs from the previous watch while still in my bunk. Way better situational awareness when going on watch.

I recently had to export this summer’s logs as PDF for the German cruising association, and it came out to 214 pages! Quick example:


We run an hourly backup of our logs to GitHub (whenever boat has internet), so the logs are kept relatively secure. For a “lights out offshore” situation it might be nice to rig something like a receipt printer to get a hard copy of the data useful for dead reckoning.

[Marexetan]

The most convenient way is to use google sheets for me. In addition, they synchronize when there is an internet.