documented maintenance schedule & log

With any luck, my acceptance trials will go well early next week and we will have reason to crack open a bottle of bubbly.

I will want to get a good start on my maintenance regime and documentation. Can you point me in the right direction for a documented maintenance schedule and maintenance log book? Perhaps something that is already published or that you might have put together yourself? Maybe even electronic? MS Excel?

If I'm going to follow*a schedule, it might as well be a well thought out one based on experience which I don't yet have.

Thanks!

Mark

documented maintenance schedule & log

Mark---

You can buy maintenance books, but I found the easiest thing to do is create your own. Some people use Excel for this. I used a graphics program.

I patterned mine after the logsheets we use with the airplanes I fly. Since we have two engines I have two columns in each data "block." Each block covers one trip. We could have each data block cover one leg of a trip, but we're not that detail oriented. When the day comes we're able to take a longer trip--- several weeks, say--- we may fill out a block at the end of each day's run.

After shutdown we note the hour meter reading for each engine at the top of the column and then subtract our way down to arrive at the total hours for that particular trip, the total hours on the engine(s), the hours since the last engine oil change, Simms pump oil change (you won't need that ), oil and fuel filter changes, and so on. There is also space in the block to note generator data although we don't keep track of hours of operation. There is space in each block to note any repairs or maintenance items. We also have a commercially available Maintenance and Repair book that we note these items in, too.

Once we've filled in all the blanks in the data block we write the current totals in the appropriate spaces in the next block so it's ready to use after the next trip.

There are a number of ways our system could be improved--- I'd like to add battery check dates, for example--- but I printed a whole bunch of them up (they're in a 3-ring binder) so the ones we have will suffice until we have to print more at which point I'll improve it.

There are a lot of ways you can do all this, and I'm sure other people on this forum have far better and more logical or intuitive setups than we do. But this will perhaps give you a starting point to think about how you want to manage this aspect of owning a boat.

-- Edited by Marin at 14:30, 2008-01-05

I would start by getting Da Book for every item aboard the boat.

Unlike a car with a single mfg , the boat will contain "stuff" from many brands of mfg.

Every system aboard needs to be covered , EZ to look in the engine book for engine oil ,grease, and antifreeze requirements , but how often do you need to air up the FW accumulator, or drain and refill hydraulic steering?

If it moves it will need to be serviced , and Da Book will make trouble shooting more than just guessing.

FF

Thanks everyone - all good advice. Ship's/sailing logbook will for sure be a simple affair. Maintenance schedule/log will likely be something electronic that I make myself. I have now received a couple of excellent examples to work from.

Mark

RE: documented maintenance schedule & log

A good rainy day project is to get on the web and collect as many manuals as you can in electronic (usually .pdf) format. They will really come in handy, and don't take up any space, except on your hard drive.

"A good rainy day project is to get on the web and collect as many manuals as you can in electronic (usually .pdf) format. They will really come in handy, and don't take up any space, except on your hard drive."



And then print out a hard copy or bring your printer aboard.

Sorta hard to bring the computer into the engine space to trouble shoot , the days project.

Murphy was an Optomist!

FF

documented maintenance schedule & log

Proabably not applicable to small boats like ours, but in the airline world maintenance manuals are almost a thing of the past with many airlines. Both Boeing and Airbus supply complete maintenance documentation in digital form that is loaded on a laptop. Instead of carting around a huge book or constantly running back to the maintenance office to look stuff up and print out pages of instructions and drawings, mechanics simply carry a laptop. On some planes like the 777, the laptop can be plugged into the plane's onboard fault finding and diagnostic system and the information about a particular problem dowloaded and automatically correlated with the relevant troubleshooting and maintenance procedures.

A 120' corporate yacht I was associated with a few years ago had a somewhat similar setup. All the boat's system schematics, system components, and component maintenance manuals were digitized and loaded onto into a computer. Interactive diagrams were created where a crewmember could call up a schematic of the vessel, point and click on any component in the vessel, be it a raw water cooling seacock, the commercial electric grill in the galley, or the bow thruster, and automatically get photos of the component as it was installed in the vessel, engineering drawings of how the component was installed in the vessel, the complete operator and installation manuals (if any) for the component, and the relevant maintenance, repair, and replacement instructions.

Once created, this data base was loaded onto laptops that were issued to each memeber of the five-person crew (including the captain). So when the engineer had to perform some maintenance or troubleshooting task in the engine room, for example, he took his laptop down there, called up the component in quesiton, and had everything he needed--- schematics, drawings, operating instructions, assembly-reassembly instructions, etc.--- on the screen.

It was a really slick deal, but it took a big effort to create the data base from scratch.

Ever since seeing this I have been toying with the idea of doing it for our boat.* We are fortunate in that all the previous owners of our boat kept every manual, brochure, etc.*for every single piece of equipment , no matter how large or small, on the boat. Even the very unique shower drain pump has its manual in the book,*as are*the boat's original owner's, engine, and transmission*manuals.* So it would be a matter of doing a lot of scanning (we have a scanner) and then creating the interactive data base.* It'd be kind of a neat project but I'm in the middle of writing a book so it will have to wait.

-- Edited by Marin at 12:00, 2008-01-09

Marin -

That's an interesting business opportunity for someone (who has time) - download, scan, etc every installation, maintenance, and operating manual that's available. Then have a way for a boat owner to list the equipment on his boat and order up a CD with all of the relevant manuals.

Unfortunately, copyright issues would probably scuttle it. But it would be a pretty cool service.

Unfortunately, copyright issues would probably scuttle it. But it would be a pretty cool service.

Probably , but folks are busy and some lazy, so selling the exact link to the exact page (say for a buck?) might get folks to part with $20 fairly easily , and be worth it to anyone with a life.

FF