log books

[fred1diver]

Ok, lets all be honest here, who uses one? and what do you write in it?

I have a solid scuba diving back-ground and let's be honest, not every one uses them, is it the same in sailing?


FRED

 

[Ron-Anne]

We keep a log to record time left, time to next marina etc, living and sailing the St Lawrence, things can get interesting pretty quickly and its nice to know where and how far away the next safe harbor is, the river current does vary a bit and the wind direction and weather change quickly.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Fred, the question is pertinent, perhaps your conclusions aren't. We use one all the time. I now am up to our seventh, since 1983 with our old C22. I write down the exploits of the day, have guests do their thing, write navigational items. I find it great fun reading back. sometimes I've put in contact information so two years from now I can sail up to ABY YC and say to the harbormaster, "Hi, Mark, good to see you again!" In my line of work, it's important to take and keep notes, I simply transferred it to my hobby. I keep separate maintenance logs and inventory lists.

 

[fred1diver]

cool, I'm sold, I'll go pick one up tomorrow!!!
thanks guys
FRED

 

[Bill Roosa]

Well for starters I put the time we turn on the anchor light or hoist the ball. At that point it becomes a legal document. Also the activities of the day, persons on board, weather, barometer..... engine hours, maintenance notes, fuel taken on.....

 

[31seahorse]

Hello Members,

I had good intentions (and you know where that road paving leads) of keeping a serious log book and did well for a few sails. After a short time I began to write "story poems" to describe our adventures and have done that since 2007. I enjoy writing them after the day's sailing.

The use of times and maintenance proceedures as mentioned in posts above is a worthwhile idea. For the new boat I will seperate the maintenance log from the sailing activity log. Thanks for the reminder of the importance of a "real" log book.

 

[Claude L.-Auger]

Like Stu I have used one for years. I make it myself every year. On a return trip from the Bahamas, I was intercepted by the Sheriff on the Hudson River. He asked if I had a Log Book ? By then it was about 1" & 1/2 thick as I had been gone 9 months ! I handed it to him and he perused through it asking a few questions, then said he didn't even need to board the boat. A log book is indeed a legal document that can also help you with an insurance claim if anything happens. I also write all kinds of info in it and when returning to an area I have been before, I bring back the old ones so I can have names of places, people, and notes about anchorages, marinas, etc.

Resorting to making my own, I use pictures for the 2 covers, and I have a page where all the boat's info (insurance, document numbers, equipment, etc) is listed. Saves looking for it when needed.

Attached are the 2 main work pages. It reads of course from left to right and all the info is on one line, starting at the left of the left page going all the way to the right of the right page.

Under the Log colum is where I post the log instrument mileage reading, Hrs is engine hours at that time, Speed I use GPS, C/GPS is the Magnetic heading of the GPS at the time, Cc is compass. Under Sail/Eng I enter what sails I'm using, i.e. M1J80% would mean Main with 1 reef Jib furled down to 80%. If motoring, I write Eng & the rpm. PoS is point of sail and I simply draw an arrow showing it relative to the boat. Right page is simple with Wind (ex: SW 10), Sea state, Sky state, Visibility (I use a 1 to 6 scale) and Barometer.

The bottom of both pages is self-explanatory.

Sorry for the long post, but this is just to offer it to anyone here who is interested. Done originally in Excel, PM me your email if you want to see the full version.

 

[Brian D]

Claude L.-Auger, thanks for the logs. I was going to buy one but yours are perfect.

 

[Allan12210]

We have kept logs since we bought our boat in 1985. Some places we go are tricky enough that it is great to go back and refer to the notes we kept from prior voyages. Its good to record individual course directions, times of transit as well as distances. We also have the maintenance records and fuel consumptions recorded. The actual log books are on the boat in plastic bags but we have also scanned them as well. Those .pdf's are on the laptop and at home.

In addition since the advent of GPS, we have saved all of our bread crumb trails (tracks) of everywhere we've been. This dates back to our earliest handheld GPS that had nothing on the display except waypoints that were manually entered either ahead of time or upon arrival. Those tracks have been downloaded and saved as Garmin data base files (.gpx, .gdb). At anytime we can re-upload them into the GPS to follow our way back to somewhere that is hard to navigate (but with the prior track we successfully negotiated in the past). And of course I also have all my old paper charts with the notes on them and positions plotted. I still do that as well with a new(er) set as the old ones are hard to read with all the pencil lines. This helps pass the time on a long trip as well as remembering that the electronic system is only my back up.

Last year there was this couple on a cruise out we were on who really looked familiar, but we couldn't place them. We each took out our logbooks and leafed back through them and sure enough we had cruised together 2 years earlier. How much shorter is my memory going to get?

 

[Rick486]

Fred, the question is pertinent, perhaps your conclusions aren't. We use one all the time. I now am up to our seventh, since 1983 with our old C22. I write down the exploits of the day, have guests do their thing, write navigational items. I find it great fun reading back. sometimes I've put in contact information so two years from now I can sail up to ABY YC and say to the harbormaster, "Hi, Mark, good to see you again!" In my line of work, it's important to take and keep notes, I simply transferred it to my hobby. I keep separate maintenance logs and inventory lists.

Yes I do exactly the same as this. It is wonderful to re read about days 15 years ago. Otherwise all those wonderful memories just run through your fingers like fine sand.

 

[JK_Boston_Catalina310]

We use Navionics on our iPad for navigation. That has a track function that we use ever time we go out. There is also a notes section that we use to add things like conditions, people who were with us, memorable events, etc. There is a sync feature so the data syncs with my iPhone and that works as a sort term backup. For long term we can archive a report and put it in PDF. That I save in our cloud backup. All electronic with plenty of backups.

Fair winds,

Jesse

 

[Claude L.-Auger]

Claude L.-Auger, thanks for the logs. I was going to buy one but yours are perfect.

Thanks Brian, No need to go through the trouble of re-doing the whole thing. Just PM me your email address and I'll send the Excel version to you and you can adapt it to your liking.

 

[rgranger]

I'm afraid I'm one of those guys with good intentions. I have a professionally bound log on my boat but I don't make regular entries into that...but after each cruise I do go home and write up a "log" but it is more in the form of a diary. I put in where I launched, where we anchored, details about any marina we stayed at and what we did for fun... any adventures we had, who we met etc. I also put in a lot of pictures to remember those people and places better. I have a collection of these short stories on my computer and I really do love looking back on them (especially on a cold winter day).

 

[Gary_H]

I have two log books and I'm afraid that except for the first pages they are blank. I have never gotten into the habit of writing things down. Even my dive logs, and I have been diving for 30 yrs. started off strong and eventually tapered off to nothing. Even the dive data that is recorded in my dive computer seldom gets downloaded and eventually is overwritten. I guess I'm just getting lazy as I get older.

 

[Charlie Jones s/v Tehani]

I have the log books from two previous boats, and this one.

I record engine start, anchor up, time through bridges, time through locks, sail changes, etc. Plus wind, weather info.

Put in notes about conditions, and things seen.

Each evening, if at anchor, I finish off with anchor time, lat long of where, engine hours, mile run.

I use a large bound note book, with all info on right side page, engine time, mileage, etc on left page.

Even now, some 30 years after my first cruising boat, I enjoy reading back through that log. My now 46 year old son was aboard then and the memories are very nice.

 

[JonnyQuest]

Yep, memories fade and many just get lost completely. Although just a day sailor, I bought a leather bound medium sized journal and add entries on sailing conditions, performance, maintenance notes, and anything else I can think of. I find it helps with keeping on maintenance and repair projects instead of letting them linger on unattended. The log often times get entered in bed at the end of the day.

Good info to share from the other posters, ill likely start incorporating these when we start cruising.

 

[capta]

We maintain a log book at all times, even if we just pull the pick to go get fuel.
It has everything in it from adding oil to the generator to wind/sea/current on an inter-island hop of 8 hours. Miles run, max wind speed, max boat speed, avg speed and of course the time the anchor came up and went down.
Filter changes are logged as are fuel quantities at fill up, and price as are gene & ME hours operated.
All this information can be used for reference when wondering if fuel consumption on the gene has fallen (wow, wouldn't that be nice) or how long it took to go from Portsmouth, Dominica to FdeF, Martinique, last time? On passages there is an entry every 4 hours with our position from the GPS, miles run, avg course steered, avg & max wind speed, avg & max boat speed, notes on the weather, sea state and current if known. Should our electronic equipment fail, there is never more than a 4 hour lag in exact information from which to begin DR navigation. There is also a place for the watch stander filling in her watch info to place personal comments.
A properly and continually maintained log book is a legal record for the vessel and is the final factual word should it be necessary to present evidence in a legal situation. There can not be any erasures, pages torn out or any other deletion of information, though a neatly crossed out error followed by the correct info is acceptable.
There is nothing to lose by keeping a good log book and everything to gain. Anyway, with "old timer's disease" creeping up on me, memory aids are often appreciated.

 

[RichH]

We keep 3 separate logs.

For distance sailing/travel, we maintain a 'deck log' of navigation and operational issues; if 'inside' - pump outs (now required as a 'contemporaneous record' in some states - eg.: NC); and 'serious' radio communications VHF & SSB heard. This is our compilation of 'legal' document/evidence if needed. Its a book with a sewn binding and all entries are in ink.
When on passage, the deck log gets hourly entries of nav./postion data, how many 'hand pumps' it takes to clear the bilge, etc. ... (been hit by lightening too many times).

We also keep an informal running daily log of who, what, when where, how much, etc. for 'history', etc. - 'literary stuff'.

I also keep a separate maintenance log ... good for keeping 'on schedule' of regular maintenance and developing 'problem' remediation.

 

[JK_Boston_Catalina310]

We keep 3 separate logs.

For distance sailing/travel, we maintain a 'deck log' of navigation and operational issues; if 'inside' - pump outs (now required as a 'contemporaneous record' in some states - eg.: NC); and 'serious' radio communications VHF & SSB heard. This is our compilation of 'legal' document/evidence if needed. Its a book with a sewn binding and all entries are in ink.
When on passage, the deck log gets hourly entries of nav./postion data, how many 'hand pumps' it takes to clear the bilge, etc. ... (been hit by lightening too many times).

We also keep an informal running daily log of who, what, when where, how much, etc. for 'history', etc. - 'literary stuff'.

I also keep a separate maintenance log ... good for keeping 'on schedule' of regular maintenance and developing 'problem' remediation.

We tried the deck log but didn't like the constant writing. Now on the top of each hour we place a "sign here" post it note point to our GPS coordinates on our charts. Probably not the best practice but it works for us and we don't sail more than 12 hours because we always have our dog with us.

We also do have a radio log. That's just a spread sheet I made up and keep in a 3 ring binder. But it works. I record radio checks and communications with CG, harbor masters other than calling for moorings/dockage, other important calls. I also was keeping a separate maintenance log but now I am documenting most of that on my blog. Probably not the best reading but easy for me.

Jesse

 

[Ward H]

I keep two logs.
The first log is of every visit to the boat for repairs/maintenance. Between trips to the boat I make notes of what I need to take or buy for the next trip, what repairs/maintenance is needed, etc. After the visit I record what has been completed, hours spent and what should be done on the next visit.

The second is a sailing log.
Time out and back, duration, engine hours and total hours, weaither conditions, crew, purpose, destination and miles covered. I then record a paragraph or so of comments about the sail, including a critique of leaving the slip, docking and sail trim activities.
Being new to sailing, just recorded my 11th sail, I like to take notes of what I learned, what worked and what did not work.

Being a big fan of Evernote, I keep the logs in Evernote. I made a template for the sail log to keep that uniform and just free hand the Boat Visits.

I like the idea of using the tracking feature in Navionics and hope to start using that as well.