HELP - Eager for your input on logbooks

[Cheechako]

Maybe add "course steered", that and your lat lon positins will tell you how much leeway or current you are experiencing.

[Therapy]

Mine started complex and ended more or less simple like Jim Cats. More of a journal than a true log. Only coastal cruising though and mostly day sails so not really as important I guess.

Always kept a separate repair and engine log.

[JPA Cate]

Hydra,

Could you please inform us what data, precisely, are required for your log? how frequently?

Thank you very much.

Ann

[Cheechako]

"I know I saw that log somewhere back in Antigua... or was it Inagua?"

[Two Fish]

Jim,
Two Fish is named after the book. Easy to spell and works ok in foreign countries.

Dave/Jim and others
I don't plan on using this on day sails. It is for multi day legs on our trip from BA to NYC.
I do want some of this data to confirm the boats polars.

Goboatingnow,
I am not worried about the crew, she is very diligent. As for myself I do have a tendency to get lazy. I may end up leaving many blanks.

Pelagic,
Made your changes but what is the legal reason for from and towards?
I do have a first page with all the boat specs and mmsi etc.
In both measuring systems so i don't have to do the calculation right by the bridge else loose my stick.

Jammer,
I thought you need a log to prove time in country but suppose the passport does that just fine.

Monte,
Was thinking of having a laminated one pager for my mechanical check list.
assume after a few months it will stay in the drawer. I have bolder plan for a mechanical log but that will be another post and another withdrawal from the cruiser forum advice bank.

Conachair,
I will look at Konni logbook. My issue is that I don't want to have my laptop running all day. It will fly off the navstation one day, consumes power and could get damaged. However, I have looked at Maertron's orange box that stores all my nmea data. Was tempted to buy this. No laptop on. Down load data with a thumb drive every month or so.
Thoughts?


Tingum,
As mentioned earlier may have my mech log as well but as an excel spreadsheet.


thanks everyone for the great help.


I will do a post on this on www. twofishcat .com

[Kettlewell]

I buy bound blank books and use them for logbooks. No pre-determined entries required or set space required. Sometimes it's just maintenance, other times it is course, position, weather, etc., other times it is just what happened and what we were up to that day.

[Hydra]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

Hydra,

Could you please inform us what data, precisely, are required for your log? how frequently?

Thank you very much.

Ann

The French regulations say that I must record:
- the crew list,
- the time of departure,
- the forecast and observed weather,
- the position, course and speed at regularly spaced times,
- the consumption and remaining fuel
- any incident, breakdown or damage happening onboard or observed in the area.

The frequency isn't specified. The regulations just say "at regular intervals". I try to record the observed weather, the position, course and speed at least once every 2 hours. Since I have fuel for more than 24h motoring, I record the fuel only once a day.

I never have had my logbook checked by any authority but it is well understood that the police would require it in case of an accident, for checking that my paperwork is OK and that I am a prudent mariner.

Alain

[Therapy]

Oh yea. I only write on the right side. I can't seem to write when my hand starts bumping on the spine.

And I was amazed at how hard it was to write when there was any kind of "bumpiness" going on. Had to write larger and more carefully. An indication of general conditions.

I also left blanks in places to be filled out later with more detail.

[JPA Cate]

Alain,

Thank you so much, it's really interesting to see what other people accept as a base line. By the French regulations, would you have to say who your crew were if they were the same all the time?

We have always operated on the assumption that since the log is a legal document, of course, details of unusual occurrences should be included. When we left the US, no specific requirements for logs were in effect. However we record our position, compass heading, speed over the ground, wind strength and direction, wave heights and directions, cloud cover and barometer readings, usually a minimum of 4 times a day...and the lat/lon, HDG, & SOG when we make a change (like change headsails, or commence or stop motoring, if we encounter strong counter-currents. We have had Australian Customs ask to see our logs, as well. At the end of the voyage, we figure out our total miles actually traveled and our average boat speed. We do not record our fuel consumption in our trip log, though Jim does check it.

Thanks for answering my question.

Ann

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Two Fish

Conachair,
I will look at Konni logbook. My issue is that I don't want to have my laptop running all day. It will fly off the navstation one day, consumes power and could get damaged. However, I have looked at Maertron's orange box that stores all my nmea data. Was tempted to buy this. No laptop on. Down load data with a thumb drive every month or so.
Thoughts?

Hi, never herd of maretrom before, looks interesting, but that's a load of money And nmea2000 only by the looks of it.
In practice I've not had any probs with a laptop on the chart table using some of that anti slip matt. Power is an issue though, major offshore passages I'd record position 4 times a day, paper logbook getting entries at the same time. and have it hibernating the rest of the time. Apart from spider solitaire sessions

Coastal not so easy, sometimes the gps input gets messed up coming out of hibernate with those nasty usb/serial converters, last time I did this properly was a while ago, opencpn 3.2 might be better now.
But all in all I think getting a laptop talking to your gps is well worth the effort, that logbook plugin is a hady place to store all the ships info & print out crew lists or equipment lists for customs/immigration even if you don't use the logbook itself, and the uploading routes to a gps seems to work well now, even with garmin.

[goboatingnow]

Given the increasing preponderance of interconnected equipment. Its a wonder someone hasn't done a simple ticket printer that prints out the usual info. It could then be attached to the log page. I've seen similar systems on commercial vessels

Dave

[Snowpetrel]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

All good input so far….. especially to keep it simple/flexible and user friendly
Having designed a few custom logs for Super-yachts and my own StarGazer, I would consider these changes

To avoid redundancy, remove the Date Column.

On Header/ Simplify and keep a bit more flexible for legal reasons.
Date: Sailing From: ______ Towards:__________

I Format a wide hard cover 2 sided log book so Left Side is the 24 x hourly log data if underway and/also lined in 4 sections for Daily record if at anchor.

My personal column order is abbreviated from these running log items
Time/ Compass Course/ T Course /Set Hdg (pilot) /COG / SOG/LAT/LONG/RPM/ BAR/ Sea/ Wind/ WK (watch keeper initial)

I find that on today’s modern yacht with so much electronics near helm keeping a close awareness of the emergency steering compass (M) heading in concert with what you are getting from other electronic Heading sensors will help, if you ever have to DR on your emergency compass alone

Right Side is kept flexible and simple under the title REMARKS, where you can modify special or standing orders, make sailing note of events (sail plan) or of any repairs needed.

It becomes the most interesting side and are the working notes record of your voyaging….

First page, I would put all the legal /Com and builder Specs including air draft as a handy reminder
I leave a few numbered pages blank at back for detail notes
Have fun with your design

For a professional looking logbook everything that he said.. The abbreviation CVMO is handy, it means Courses Various to Masters Orders. A good and legal way to deal with frequently changing courses. If we have a pilot onboard it's CVMO&PA (Pilots advice), I guess on a yacht it could be CVMO&AA (admirals advice, if you have one aboard). I would probably add a another column for a Safety check (rounds), and a set of standing orders at the front.

Sailing From: ______ Towards:__________

Good to see you keeping the traditions of the sea alive with the word Towards instead of To. We religiously added it by hand to our official log books (which in lubberly fashion used the word to..)on the container ships, always worked! Touch wood.

Originally Posted by monte

At the top of the page I also have a checklist for fuel, oil, water, exhaust, battery, bilge. Just to tick before getting underway.

Good idea, also you can add other prestart jobs like safety briefing, engine tested ahead and astern, Steering checked, and all hatches secured. If you want to be all fancy. I do this on commercial boats when I am being paid to be professional.

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

I buy bound blank books and use them for logbooks. No pre-determined entries required or set space required. Sometimes it's just maintenance, other times it is course, position, weather, etc., other times it is just what happened and what we were up to that day.

This is exactly what I do this on boats where I am not being paid and am taking a holiday from being professional, but I still use Towards instead of to.

I always admire people who keep detailed logs on their boats when they don't have to. I guess I don't get to fussed about it on a private boat due having had to do them for a job. But in the future you can look back on it and enjoy, so put in more comments than just the weather and courses and make it fun. Sometimes I wish I had been more detailed in my own log books.

[goboatingnow]

I view the primary purpose of a log , is to allow me to rebuild a paper chart with my track to date , after that everything else is optional and personal preference and is simply a n historical record of things YOU like to record.

I also suggest that only one of each type of information be captured , so heading and not COG , stw not SOG , etc. I've frequently seen crew from in-attentiveness or tiredness , fill the wrong info into the wrong column , thereby corrupting both.


In one or two cases I have put little red paper dots on or near the Raymarine fields, i wanted recorded. Too many times I've seen people record the cursor position !!!


My custom logs have

Date at the top ( I like a page per day) , from , towards etc ( Neptune does not like the human arrogance of ' to' )

time of log entry
Lat
Long
( both of these are the key things you want and I give them loads of input space, I hate the tiny boxes given to these on some logs )

Log
STW

Heading
Ordered course ( usually entered on a blank line and 'ditto'ed
Under engine ( tick box)
Crew

Commentary ( I have given the whole facing page line to this in most cases , some people write essays !!)

I maintain separate repair logs and carry as required a GMDSS radio log , but important radios calls are logged in the commentary of the main log and hence the GMDSS log isn't used ( sue me),


I use a spiral bound lay flat format , through the French gave me a bit of a lecture on that one . !!! ( and about using pencils !!)


I never ask for information that cannot be got from directly in front of the crew person entering the log ,( with exception of compass and log ) nothing worse then people roaring up or down about log book information .
Dave

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

Good to see you keeping the traditions of the sea alive with the word Towards instead of To.

Small difference but psychologically very powerful!

Slight drift but slowly more and more boat stuff is going on google, weekly, monthly and yearly maintenance check lists are on google calendars, plus basic log of boat movements which all sync u[p nicely between the laptop, nexus 7, phone etc. No excuse now
Also, enabling labs in google calendars lets you attach files, just takes a few minutes to download the track from the gps and attach it to the calendar event so in years to come a couple of clicks will bring up the passage on google maps or earth to relive those happy memories. Google earth has a time slider as well. Bit cumbersome so far , download as a gpx with eaasygps the load into opencpn , copy as kml then save as a text file but there must be an easier way. Maybe a bit much messing around for many people but not that hard really.
Just noticed logbook konni can export as a kml, so couple of clicks your route and log are saved where you can get to them from anywhere online.

Then the internet lizard people can watch your every move....

[Hydra]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

By the French regulations, would you have to say who your crew were if they were the same all the time?

The phrase about the logbook in the French regulations is slightly cryptic. It doesn't say how often I have to write the crew names. On each double page, I made a box for that purpose. If I never changed crew, I suppose it would be OK to have the names printed on the first page.

We have always operated on the assumption that since the log is a legal document, of course, details of unusual occurrences should be included.

Me too. Last winter, I feared the mast would come down on a yacht I was ferrying. I made a remark in the logbook!

When we left the US, no specific requirements for logs were in effect. However we record our position, compass heading, speed over the ground, wind strength and direction, wave heights and directions, cloud cover and barometer readings, usually a minimum of 4 times a day...and the lat/lon, HDG, & SOG when we make a change (like change headsails, or commence or stop motoring, if we encounter strong counter-currents.

I do almost the same, except I write water depth instead of cloud cover, much more useful where I am cruising.

We do not record our fuel consumption in our trip log, though Jim does check it.

I suppose the purpose of making me recording the fuel consumption is to reduce the risk of running out of fuel (the main reason for French boaties calling for help). Since I don't have a fuel gauge and the tank capacity is more than 2 days at cruising speed, I record the fuel once a day, making an assumption on hourly rate.

Alain