what happens to a commercial ships logbooks...

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ianat182

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Most aircraft pilots retain their logbook recording hours flown and appropriate notes even when they finish flying. What happens to a commercial ship's log, or even a yacht log when the craft has finished its sailing life?
 
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Ships logs are posted off to head office once complete.

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Which one ? Official Log that is a condensed version literally of the Deck and Engine Logs. In my days - logs stayed on the vessel until she was scrapped. Then they were boxed up and archived at company office.
I don't remember posting any ....
 
Offical log books in use have to be retained on board for inspection by a relevent authority.
Deck and engine room logs would tend to be retained for a couple of months after completion then forwarded along with any redundant official log books to the office for storage. Official logbooks and ships articles normally ran alongside each other time wise (6 months now I believe?).

No personel logbook (as pilots get) as such is issued to seamen, the nearest you'll get is your Discharge Book, which you have to buy! and is your only record of ships you have served in.
 
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Obviously different companies have different procedures...

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Think trouble is many people don't know there are a multitude of log books on a ship !
With Shell we used to send in the yellow copy sheet and retain the top sheet (log-books Deck and Engine) had duplicate pages designed for the purpose. The retained was exactly that - retained till ship was scrapped.
The Clutha style as many FOc ships I was on used - they stayed on board and didn't have duplicate pages.
The Official Log stayed on board - well they did on all ships I was on. But I didn't sail on every ship !!
 
Which one ? Official Log that is a condensed version literally of the Deck and Engine Logs. In my days - logs stayed on the vessel until she was scrapped. Then they were boxed up and archived at company office.
I don't remember posting any ....

They are archived at head office as soon as completed along with the full engineroom logs. They are retained in the event they are required in the event of claims or legal actions...Things move slowly in the marine world and claims can sometimes be filed years after the event .
 
different companies, different rules but about 5-7 years is quite normal, the officila log book to be retained on board!
it is very usefull, when need a copy of the log book for some old claims ! for example - the vessel have left the houston channel on 10 of feb 2007 and the mooring ropes of one of the moored vessel parted and injured a stevedores ashore, followed by a claim from the stevedoring company, for overspeed of the vessel & now one of the parties need more datas from the vessel and etc
 
That's a safe bet alright, but then I'm not casting doubt on how other shipping companies operate /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
The British flag and others that "descend from it (eg, HK, Bahamas) have an Official Log Book which remains the property of the Flag State and contains a bare minimum of official information, espescially in relation to crew matters. The OLB stays on board until closed or the ship is sold and changes flag. Other flags don't bother with this.

As concerns deck and engine logs, there are really two schools of log keeping - in one the deck and engine log books are written up contemporaneously and in the other a scrap log is kept and transferred to the fair log once a day. The latter idea is widely disapproved of in British shipowning practice as the information is not contemporaneous, i.e. the log can be flogged so foreign courts make a point of asking for both the "scrap" and "fair" Log Books and a British ship has to explain why there is no "scrap log"!

The deck and engine logs "ought" according to the English courts (see the LADY GWENDOLEN - the Guiness tanker case) to be reviewed by the deck and engine superintendents at head office to ensure that company policy is being observed. This might have happened forty years ago in Blue Funnel but nowadays nobody has the time to do this.

These logs ought to be kept for at least four years (time limit for cargo claims is one year, two years for collisions and salvage, three years for personal injuries) but six years is really better.

Nowadays most of the data that you need to investigate an accodent will come from the data logging systems on board.
 
Thank you Minn et al,most interesting. Often wondered about the copperplate handwriting being done when excerpt from logs are photographed in books I've read. So,no personal logbooks are kept by the crews as a kind of CV, I thought that when signing-on their seamans registration documents may have been annotated, and for disciplinary entries. OK I know the original question was for the ships log retention,but I still wondered.
 
As an Engineering Superintendant in the early 90's I certainly had all of the engine logs returned to head office once completed and they were carefully checked. It wasn't uncommon to pick up faults by trending the information.
They were then archived for the life of the ship.
 
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That's a safe bet alright, but then I'm not casting doubt on how other shipping companies operate /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

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Now hang on a mo matey ... I posted about what I saw / did - and did not contradict another. I can accept there are many ways to 'skin a cat' ... so really an unfair reply on your part.
My comment about not sailing on all ships was a polite way of accepting that Shell, Chevron, Stena Bulk, Stena Carriers, Concordia Maritime, ChemiCar Greece, Petromin, to name just a few of the many company's I have worked with are not the total shipping fleet of the world.
If I was so inclined - I could walk down to the docks now and board anyone of 10 ships presently working in the port and ask the Masters - but you know what ? I don't really care.
/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
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Thank you Minn et al,most interesting. Often wondered about the copperplate handwriting being done when excerpt from logs are photographed in books I've read. So,no personal logbooks are kept by the crews as a kind of CV, I thought that when signing-on their seamans registration documents may have been annotated, and for disciplinary entries. OK I know the original question was for the ships log retention,but I still wondered.

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Each seaman has a Discharge book that is stamped by Superintendent or Master recording his / her period on board. Disciplinary data is not put in this, that is a company matter or as in the case of the incident I was involved in - placed in DoT Marine (Now MCA) records. Official Log-book can "log" a disciplinary action and is the foundation of the term "logged". I am well aware of the term and action - as it was part of the DoT court case / tribunal I was involved in.
I still have my Discharge books, Liberian and UK along with Seamans ID Book.
 
Didn\'t think Belgrano surrendered

If I remember she was steaming away from exclusion zone but take your point about Conquerors log book
 
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