The Art of Keeping a Nautical Logbook - Part 1 of 2
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- čas přidán 3. 08. 2024
- We compare and contrast different ways of designing and using nautical logbooks. We start from experiences with using the Adlard Coles logbook and then suggest a different approach to keeping a logbook.
The purpose of the video is to stimulate discussion about pros and cons of different styles of keeping a nautical logbook.
This is Part 1 of 2 in a mini series about nautical logbooks. Part 2 will be about the technology I use for type-setting and harvesting data from logbooks.
Interesting! Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Thank you.
I am a new captain and, after crewing for races and cruises, now own a Beneteau 35s5 which I am restoring to its former glory. 2 years into the refit now and beginning to try longer cruises! There are so many things that go into properly operating a larger boat and I greatly appreciate videos like this. Thanks for posting and I will follow a documentation scheme like this!
You are welcome. Glad you found it useful.
Thank you for the helpful video. I will be putting into practice this summer!
You are welcome. Glad you found it useful.
The list is easy and practical. Takker
Thank you! Glad you like it.
An interesting video. I use a combination of a notepad and a 'tabular' logbook. The notepad is to record things that happen and the logbook to record data regarding the trip, e.g. speed, time, distance, weather.
But I am not happy with the log books that you can purchase and am looking at designing a layout that suits my data needs. I just need somebody who will print and bind the pages cheaply.
On completion of a voyage I write up a narrative for friends and family that includes pictures and data taken from my chart plotter and popped into Google Earth.
Thank you for your reply. I too thought of creating my own tabular logbook format, but I found it difficult to decide on what columns to include in the tabular form, since physical (horizontal) space is quite limited and the potential columns so many. In particular lat-lon positions take up a a fair bit of horizontal space. That is why I ended up with the list format. But I'm sure a bespoke tabular format can work well, if one has a suitable number of favourite columns. I too ran into the problem of finding printing and binding at a reasonable cost. The heavy-duty binding found on e.g. Adlard Coles' logbooks appears to be very expensive to produce in small volume.
Mads, Any suggestion for an electronic log book? I use an iPad that is sync’d to my iPhone. I’m looking to operate under 3 logs. Maintenance Schedule, Daily Log, and other info for like when I have taken on Fuel, add oil, Battery state, etc.
Paul, Are you asking whether I have suggestions concerning software for iPhones and iPads that can help one enter logbook data? If so, I’m afraid the answer is no, since I am not aware of software tailor made for that purpose. (Maybe somebody else who reads this knows of some?) However, if you are willing to use a laptop, stay tuned for Part 2 of my miniseries, in which I explain what technology I use for making my logbooks. I use the same technology for keeping Kaka’s maintenance manual and it works very nicely for that too. As for information about fuel, change of oil etc, I embed it in my daily logbook; because it is in searchable pdf format, it is easy to find out when I last changed the oil or filled the tanks. That way, I only have to maintain two documents, not three.
hello mr tofte thank you alot for this importand informations about the sail notebook and i want to ask you ,if i need some help to understand better the notebook what can i do? or where i must search, hi again goodday apostolos giakamozis from grreece
Sorry, I am not sure what the question is. Nautical logbooks contain terminology which is specific to sailing, but they can also contain more regular prose, more like a diary. I prefer to combine the two types of contents; you can find excerpts from a logbook of mine on toftesailing.com.