Filing Documents

[Kiwiscanswim]

Hello, currently fitting out our motor cruiser for living aboard/extended cruising. While I have tried to minimise the paperwork, there are some documents you have to carry. Does anyone have an easy, compact system for storing and retrieving papers?

Thanks. Annie

[JPA Cate]

Annie,

Jim has a small flexible briefcase in which he keeps our passports and our boat papers.

Some boats have safes fitted for such things.

Ann

[dohenyboy]

Scanner and printer. I have 100 gigs of documents and all my manuals are backed up too.


Sent from an undisclosed location on the high seas or from the lounge chair by the pool, you decide.

[Greenhand]

We are in the process of moving aboard as well. We are scanning documents we might need - old statements, tax forms, etc. The plan is to keep on hand ID and boat documents. Everything else should end up in cyberland.

[Stumble]

Digitizing everything is the first step. After that sort everything critically and eliminate everything that isn't really critical.

The few things that you have to have I recommend to all my clients to vaccume seal them. I like foodsavers, but the model isn't critical. Vaccume sealing is far preferable to normal filing since it's waterproof, and in most cases laminating destroys the legal value of the documents.

[Amapola]

I scanned all of our documents and carry the originals in a flexible, plastic, tabbed file folder available at most office supply stores.

[BandB]

Scan everything and vacuum seal that which you need to have aboard. There is nothing more handy on a boat than a vacuum sealer.

[J_O_D]

If you're putting them in cyberspace make sure you have a backup somewhere else as well.

If that backup is onboard on a USB stick or similar it might also be an idea to encrypt it in case the boat is ever broken into.

[hellosailor]

Annie-
If you are just talking about "vital papers" for yourselves and the boat, remember that you can also scan them and simply email copies to yourself. Most email accounts these days can hold a large amount of data literally forever, and then all you need is a way to log on to the account in order to download and print (or forward) copies whenever you need to. In fact, you can always open a dedicated free account for just that purpose.

[Arthur Garfield]

Yes HelloSailor- that is exactly what I do.

[AmyA511]

Hi Annie! I just wrote a blog topic on this - just our plans, nothing is tested yet.

http://outchasingstars.com/2014/08/0...ents-cruisers/


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