Logbook Cover

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LORDNELSON

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Can anyone point me in the right direction to locate a suitable binder for my logbook? I have designed a set of pages which I think will suit my needs but now want to find a cover for them so that I end up with a reasonable looking job. What I have in mind is a hard cover with two screwable posts to accept the normal two holes formed by an office file punch. The sheets are A4 size. Thanks to anyone who replies.
 
Hate to P**s on your parade but there have been reports of Le Frog Gendarmerie fining people for not having 'bound' Log Books completed in ink.

Just saying.........please don't shoot the messenger!
 
Officially Log-books for shipping have to be bound and permanent writing. That way no alteration can be made without it being recorded.
The average yottie loose-leaf jobs are great for ease of use - but questionable in event of incident.

Personally I like the Page - a - Day Diary. I even use dry-transfer lettering to Title the cover with Boat Name and Year.

Pencil as another "jokingly" posts .... yeh sure !! Bit like "yanks" signing docs with a pencil - not joking - seen it many times.
 
All logs on Merchant vessels that I sailed on were required to be completed in Ballpoint pen.
In one company they also insisted it was in Blue ballpoint to prevent photo-copying. That is the written reason they gave.
Only time a pencil was used was on the chart - and then a 2B.
 
[ QUOTE ]
It's a while ago now but when I was in the RN I am sure had to use 2B pencil in log and nothing else

[/ QUOTE ]
lol, the RN specifying 2B pencil.

I bet the real reason behind that is more like..

'2B pencil can be rubbed out - pen cannot!' /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
Here in NZ, and I assume everywhere else, commercial stationers sell brass posts with screw ends for the use you mention. They also sell hard covers (the front and back being seperate) which can be used with them. A big commercial sationers should be able to sort something. Otherwise, there are stamp album covers available which are the same thing and may suffice.

Personally, I use a ring binder and only note departure and arrival, and a brief comment on conditions on the day (all positions are just recorded on a chart, or these days the ECS).

In case not known, and given the comments of others (none of which seem to respond to your question /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif) in most countries (and I believe this includes the UK and UK registered vessels in foreign waters) you can keep a pleasure boat log in whatever form you want and write it with anything you want, or indeed not keep a log at all. On the last point if anyone who wishes to argue may like to point out the relevant legislation and to what minimum sized boat it applies to (do canoes have to keep logs? /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif).

In fact, many types of smaller commercial vessels do not keep logs, or if so it is only kept in very minimilistic form. I have worked on commercial vessels (sea trials and commissioning into service) in a number of western countries and on many no log whatsoever is kept (peek into the wheelhouse of a local ferry for instance).

John
 
Weren't the MCA being really strict on the provision of Charts/Passage Plan/log? I remember a page on the RYA website where they were arguing against fining single handed dinghy sailors at Calshot for having no charts
 
I think you are getting confused between the requirement for passage planning (which also does not have to be written on anything as long as appropriate for the complexity of the voyage) and the recording of the actual passage.

It may indeed be good seamanship to make notes of things along the way (a fix perhaps if important to remember but difficult to remember) but it does not have to be in a log.

Note, I am not discouraging people from keeping logs or saying it is a bad thing - just saying that I am unaware of any requirement in the countries I am familiar with (and I understand the UK is the same) for normal sized pleasure vessels to actually keep one.

John
 
I don't think anyone is arguing whether a log HAS to be kept by legal requirements.

My comment about legal is whether a loose leaf is acceptable in even of incident and you try to use in a legal setting. Having been commercial on ships - I understand from that side and appreciate the argument for bound, sequenced pages etc.
On to the point of local ferry's etc. Of course I assume like many others that small ferry-s such as those that cross rivers etc with very limited passengers etc. would likely not keep full logs etc. But any vessel of reasonable size and carrying trade / passengers for hire etc. - I would expect to have at least some form of log ........

Our yachts / boats ... of course not - but that does not mean that we shouldn't try and do it "properly". What is that old expression - If a job is worth doing - it's worth doing well ?
 
Thanks very much for answering the question I posed! Problem I have come across is that the stationers I usually deal with and other local (small town) ones do not have the kind of which you and I are thinking. I have tried the web but even there a blank! The question raised about not being able to substitute pages in a bound book had occurred to me but I did not think the problem in the case of a yacht was a real one (shades of Davis taking pages out of Dulcibella's log book in "The Riddle of the Sands"!).
 
Note, I am not discouraging people from keeping logs or saying it is a bad thing - just saying that I am unaware of any requirement in the countries I am familiar with (and I understand the UK is the same) for normal sized pleasure vessels to actually keep one.

The above is what I said Nigel (together with comment on typical small boat practices) - seems we are in agreement but with you seemingly itching to disagree /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif.

Perhaps in your post about all the requirements and practices you stated you should have pointed out then that they did not apply to small pleasure vessels?

It may be of interest to others that in the quite a number of insurance cases I have provided assistance with, in not one was a log asked for or provided during discovery of documents. The usual case when there is an incident in a small vessel is that it is all very clear where the vessel was and what the conditions were, but quite obviously no one sits writing the log up as the incident occurs (e.g. No one sits entering in the log that "Boat X is overtaking us, think he is getting close. Wow he is really close now and we are taking avoiding action. Whoops he has hit us and we are taking on water and sinking, etc, etc ...I am now taking the log into the liferaft with me as evidence" /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif). So, the claims of the importance of a log for such events for pleasure vessels is marina myth and in the most severe instances where one could assume that the log would be of most importance if it ever was to have any importance at all, the log is lost with the boat.

As Nigel has pointed out, on larger vessels it is different. An easy example I can think of is the case of the anchor dragging leading to an incident. On a large vessel a record that a watch was being kept would be expected. On a small vessel that would not be so and the evidence of the crew (and any other witnesses) relied upon - I suspect not many log keepers on small boats maintain a record of the watch (although I know some do) and it would not be expected in my view.

In my view, as always after any important incident and just as one would on land with say a car accident, it is useful to write up the events as recalled as an aid to memory. But that, of course, is not a ship's/boat's log.

As others have pointed out in other threads many like to keep a log as a momento of voyages and in my view that is the main use of it (and laudable, in my view - but I am too lazy to do it myself /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif).

Again, I emphasise that I am not against keeping logs, just setting out where I believe they they lie in the scheme of things, which view is a little different to the popular one.

John
 
[ QUOTE ]
Weren't the MCA being really strict on the provision of Charts/Passage Plan/log? I remember a page on the RYA website where they were arguing against fining single handed dinghy sailors at Calshot for having no charts

[/ QUOTE ]

What use would a chart be to a single handed dinghy sailor at Calshot?

The scale wouldn't be relevant, it would get soggy (if it didn't blow away) and when would he look at it? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Mmmm I may be itchy to agree !! because a lot of statements are made by many that are written as near absolutes. We all know that pleasure boats are one of the few areas left that are relatively free of "c**p".

Of course I agree in principle. No argument - but I do not agree that they are not used. My post comes from - a boat has an incident ... lets say she 's at anchor and drags ... she then damages another. The owner of first needs evidence that he kept a watch and did the dutiful things. He presents as supporting evidence a loose leaf log.

OK - its laughable - I agree ... but what I am trying to illustrate is that the log IF used / kept - is best kept in a manner that is acceptable IF needs arise to use it.

I know from personal experience that position records as kept with various shipping co's - in the days of Decca / Loran / Transit etc. were written onto loose leaf sheets. Relevant positions at intervals were then transferred to the Deck Log. Maritime courts have dis-allowed the loose leaf sheets and accepted the Deck Log for its being bound. Also I know of cases where the Second Mates personal bound sight book - most use a school type exercise book - meaning its a permament record - has been accepted in court and the transit loose leaf sheets thrown out.

Yes I agree that I may be peddling a technical point - but a point that I think people should be aware of. I keep a Page a Day diary as my boat record - I don't call it a log. It is a script of events and rarely has data columns - we are after all a pleasure boat .... but when necessary I would insert data to reconstruct a route / event.
Passage planning and other data - is a different matter as others have pointed out and I use a landscape A4 sheet with a simple chartlet printed across top and under a table of HW, expected time into harbour, current expected ... that way it gives me a visual rough course route on the chartlet drawn free-hand and intermediate data points ... takes all of a few minutes to write out on pre-printed sheets....> as here for Solent.

SOLENTtidesheet.jpg
 
My simple query has developed quite a thread! I thought perhaps I would also chuck in my pennyworth. I have only once been involved in an insurance claim. Only one boat was involved (grounding in a force 7 in 1995)). The log book was never requested by the insurers or their agents (Bishop Skinner - who could not have been more helpful). However when filling in the insurance claim the log book was very useful in that I had a record of times and sequence of VHF calls, the prior rapid deterioration of weather and actions taken (all somewhat difficult to read because they were written in biro which smudged, my hands not being dried in the stress of the moment). So from that aspect a logbook was useful but not essential. Although I have used commercially printed logbooks up to now I find they do not fit my method of logging events and seem, in some cases, to be designed for past days when one operated on dead reckoning etc.
 
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