Log book with columns I need: the sequel

shmoo

shmoo

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A week or two back forum was kind enough to advise me about where/how to get a log book with the columns I wanted. The consensus seemed to be "make your own" and a number of folks posted suggestions and ideas.

Well, before I hit [Print] on 100 copies on nice shiny paper I wonder if I can prevail on forum's legendary attention to detail to find fault with these: left page, right page
 
I have heard that in some places (France?) they take a dim view of loose-leaf log books, though I'm not sure if it was just a wind-up.

I use an A4 book with columns similar to yourself.

I also note "From" & "Towards" at the top of each page, and also High Water Dover - "HWD" - as there are some things that are refered to this time, and if I note it at the top of the day's page in the log while still alongside, it saves me having to look it up while at sea.
 
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they take a dim view of loose-leaf log books,

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I am going to get it ring bound and it will be page numbered, but thanks!
 
Looks cool to me. I like to have
"LT = UT+/- ___" on mine - easily tucked in and useful as a reminder, particularly for less experienced crew.
 
Thanks about LT and UT. I have got into a big mess with this in the past so now I run the whole boat on UT: set all the clocks and watches to it. Sometimes needs surgery to get crew to reset their watches! Saves lots of tedious adding and taking away while going along. Then we only have to worry about opening times being wrong when we put in!
 
Thanks for kind words. When I have all the comments and incorporated them I will post result on the WCC web site. Could do a small number of variations to allow for deeply held big/little endian views such as UT / Foolscap / furlongs. The last thing I want to do is start a flame war
 
Think this sort of thing is a bit 'each to their own'. Looks ok to me, this is the one we did which has stood the test of time. It's 2 pages as we can print A3 double sided and then we have it bound

Nowhere near as colourful though!
 
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I have heard that in some places (France?) they take a dim view of loose-leaf log books, though I'm not sure if it was just a wind-up.

I use an A4 book with columns similar to yourself.

I also note "From" & "Towards" at the top of each page, and also High Water Dover - "HWD" - as there are some things that are refered to this time, and if I note it at the top of the day's page in the log while still alongside, it saves me having to look it up while at sea.

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It is actually Interntaionally accepted that Log-Books to be acceptable in legal cases should be bound. Reason is that pages cannot be removed / substituted.
Yacht Log-books generally available over Chandlers counters and surprisingly from knowledgable groups are sadly normally Loose-Leaf.

OK - the legal side as evidence may be stretching it a bit ... as most people are looking for a working, useful record of their antics on board ... but worth taking note of.

Now just for peoples interest - I'm not saying this is yacht practice. Quite often in investigations of incidents - the authorities request all items of evidence ... scrap paper memo's, jottings and other records. A ship will have various books / sheets / records to fill in for all sorts of data - they are all requested ADDITIONAL to Log-Book. It is also worth remembering that the Official Log-Book of a ship is actually sparsely detailed - it is the Engine Log-Book and Deck Log-books that hold the real detail. The Official Log literally summarises these.
 
I like both yours and Tome's with minor differences but both are very similar to the old Log Book sold by Sowester Marine, sadly now defunct. I stocked up on Sowester books whilst they were still available but I have seen them again recently reincarnated in Force 4 shops. They are fully bound not loose leaf books BTW.

All that apart, we only fill in the 'full' log on long/offshore passages and very often even then the detail is sparse as the positions are recorded as is the groundtrack on our chart plotters and even on paper charts via Yeoman. What we do have and of much more interest afterwards is a 'diary' Log with a more blog like record of ALL days afloat not just those spent offshore. This blog-log also contains photographs, picture postcards, restaurant bills and business cards and other reminders like harbour dues paid, fuel purchased and it's cost, gas cylinders bought and so on.
 
Looks good. A few comments mainly that some of the boxes, especially position are to small or is my writting to big, but when out in 'rough' will you be able to fill in neatly ? Will be interested to see the final as at present I use a lose leaf version.
 
Very good, but my pencil is rarely sharp enough to fit Lat and Long into the spaces available on this version. I would pinch some width from the time column, the apparent wind speed column and maybe lose the tide direction and speed columns.

Mark
 
I still reckon a Page a Day Diary is best .... as I reckon a narrative journal is better than data columns.
 
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...I would pinch some width from the time column, the apparent wind speed column and maybe lose the tide direction and speed columns.

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After you said this I tried writting in an entry or two - good idea, huh? actually testing the product! - and you are right. I will do as you suggest, thanks

BTW I hope spiral wire binding (they punch a lot of holes and "screw" the binding in) will be considered secure enough.
 
By running the boat entirely on GMT I once had a total catastrophe: After 3 days at sea, the lure of a pint was overwhelming. We were sure we had an hour to spare before closing time. Tragically the pub was on BST.
 
Looks very good - the only other columns I use are "next waypoint" and "distance to next".

Odd really - I didn't think they'd be any use and only started because I'd bought a logbook with them in, but now I wouldn't be without them because it gives me a rough "speed made good"
 
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BTW I hope spiral wire binding (they punch a lot of holes and "screw" the binding in) will be considered secure enough.

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You could still remove a page completely without trace. With a bound book, this is nearly impossible. It depends on whether you consider this important. Personally I wouldn't, but I've never needed to show anyone my log book.
 
Ours evolved by starting with feint ruled notebooks and manually drawing the columns etc . Over a period of time, some columns became wider or narrower as we discovered that handwiting underway in bad weather was too tricky to fit the neat spaces. Info which was entered prior to departure (tides, tankage etc) could be done in small neat boxes

Eventually it settled down and I then took measurements to reproduce them in Excel

The example is just an excel file printed as a pdf

We only enter full detail on longer passages, and the narrative for local trips might just be date, crew and where and when we depart and arrive with log readings either end
 
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BTW I hope spiral wire binding (they punch a lot of holes and "screw" the binding in) will be considered secure enough.

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You could still remove a page completely without trace.

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That's why the pages should be numbered, and preferably in the form "Page n of 50"

It's worth having a look at the CA Logbook.
 
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