Your vessel’s log

[magicol]

With the weather discouraging maintenance work and the attraction of Scrabble and Monopoly waning, thoughts are turning to the season ahead.
My wife gives me a beautifully presented log book at this time of year. It is one of those with printed sections for regular and frequent details of weather, sea state, position and much more. And each year I begin with high ideals and a determination to maintain a better log. By June, my entries have reverted to cursory scribbled notes taking little account of the detailed sections on each page.
We are essentially coastal sailors, occasionally overnight but rarely far offshore. I’m really interested to hear how others keep their vessel’s log.

 

[colind3782]

I used to use books but, similar to yourself, we only go around the bay these days so I just make a note on a spreadsheet.

 

[SaltyC]

If day sailing around the bay I will just enter Tides, weather, log reading before departure and an entry of 'under pilotage'.
I usually put an entry of sail plan and engine off.
I then finish with moored and final log reading and engine hours.
On passage elsewhere, will have same entries before departure, then sail configuration and course,DTW, plus lat and long every hour. There will also be comments and any weather updates.
Upon arrival as previous plus max speed, average speed and max wind. Plus a short summary of the day.
Good to look back on over winter plus it keeps the Single Hander amused and focused, stopping the mind wandering and losing concentration / focus.

 

[Sandy]

After much disappointment with commercially produced log books, particularly the tiny boxes that they give you to write things in. I sat down and designed a bespoke logbook, had it printed and was surprised at how cheap it was.

For each 24 hour period, I have a page for recording data: position; boat speed; wind speed; VMG; wind speed and direction (T and A) ; sail plan; engine on/off and state of the batteries. The second page is for narrative.

I am always happy to produce bespoke log books of a small sum of beer tokens. Radar plots and Universal Plotting Sheets are also available.

 

[Boathook]

I designed my own logbook and a day is on 2 sides of A4 paper. It prints double sided and is in a lose leaf folder.

I fill it out for each trip but the info can be basic to detailed depending mainly on my mood .... Have columns for log and GPS distance. If the tides are done correctly it is interesting how much the log is less than the GPS.

 

[RupertW]

We still use them especially for fuel consumption figures as our gauge has been fixed then dodgy perpetually, but do find the descriptive parts get gradually fewer as a cruise goes on. It’s still nice to look back on as we have done very few repeat journeys in the last decade or so.

 

[rotrax]

With the weather discouraging maintenance work and the attraction of Scrabble and Monopoly waning, thoughts are turning to the season ahead.
My wife gives me a beautifully presented log book at this time of year. It is one of those with printed sections for regular and frequent details of weather, sea state, position and much more. And each year I begin with high ideals and a determination to maintain a better log. By June, my entries have reverted to cursory scribbled notes taking little account of the detailed sections on each page.
We are essentially coastal sailors, occasionally overnight but rarely far offshore. I’m really interested to hear how others keep their vessel’s log.

Our sailing has been the same as yours - Coastal.

And lets be honest, on this side of the Channel, apart from known hazards and races, you just keep the land on the right going west, and vice versa.

We are simple souls. First Mate has produced loose sheets which will suffice for a 48 hour passage. We enter all relevant info at the top and have enough lines for hourly entering of position, course steered, speed etc. and the sail we have up. Seems to work. We have them in a box in the loft going back to 2002.

 

[doug748]

Years ago I sailed with a bloke who used a refillable, hard logbook, I took the hint so these are the answer for me:



The refills:



They are lined one side and the facing page is blank. The are no defined sections so you can use as little or as much space as you like. I put very basic stuff on the lined section (day date distance travelled weather) and any bits and bobs on the blank page - boats I see, sketches forecast, tide, visitors names, cost of mooring - all very rough and ready.

A log means you can easily find the name or that bloke you sailed with 20 years ago, what races you should have won in 1998 and ( for younger viewers) you have a concrete resource to work from should some future government want to start meddling with leisure sailing qualifications.

.

 

[Never Grumble]

Although most of our sailing is coastal/day sails, I use a hard copy mass produced log, admittedly a custom one would be better. The space at the bottom of the pages gets used to stick in some photos and write a bit of a narrative about what happened on the day, the way I sail something of note always happens.

Edit: it seems a nice record to have of when various persons have been out sailing with us.

 

[Stemar]

On passage, I have an Excel sheet to note our position, plus other useful stuff like tides and waypoints; my fuel tanks are translucent, so I can see how much fuel we've got at a glance, so no need for that.

For pottering around in familiar waters, I've never bothered.