Cruise log - What do you do?

Hello TFers,
Few days ago I started a thread about cruise planning. Now let's go one step further. Do you keep a cruise log when you are cruising? If yes how often are you writing down new entry, every 30min, every hour, more? And what are you logging? Position? fuel? weather observation? Anything else?

Regards,

L.

I use a desk calendar. If you can't say it in a 2"x2" square then you're talking too much.

We don't do that much detail. Usually only a line or two for each day underway, showing destination, nm traveled, and engine hours, unless there is some unusually interesting event that seems worth logging.

Crew/guests arriving or leaving, refueling, equipment issues, and maintenance are logged as well. After the summer cruise is done, I copy the equipment/maintenance stuff to a spreadsheet to keep track more easily.

17 years and 6,000 engine hours of summer cruising filled one small (6" x 8"?) Levenger notebook.

Date
Engine hours at start & finish of the day
Who's on board
Highlights of days travel (short)
Fuel purchased goes in the fuel log section
Maintenance / new equipment added goes in its section

That's about it.

We never travel directly from one place to another as we chase down whales/wildlife or check out photography hot spots, so distance traveled would be hard to figure out. (Could use the iPad for that I guess, but don't). We figure out fuel used per hour at the end of the season.

The waterways here are complex with big tides so there are weird back eddies and meandering swirls of currents which can have a big effect on distance traveled...we just keep to the same RPM and try to milk the currents when possible and estimate fuel used per hour rather than by distance.

Chartplotters track distance over ground traveled for us. Garmin 2006C, or now CE on the laptop.

Nope, not much of a log. When we sailed in open water, 10 days from Norfolk to Tortola, we made entries in a log every watch change. We kept up the log for a couple of weeks. but lost interest after they all seemed the same.

Four trips up and down the ICW, still no log. I do keep a detailed maintenance log where I track fuel consumption and price. All other activities are tracked on facebook.

Gordon

I keep a daily log when cruising or need to note service.
Date, starting point name, starting engine hours, starting odometer, starting trip odometer.
Date, ending point name, ending engine hours, ending odometer, ending trip odometer.

For service:
Date, engine hours, odometer, service info

Log gets transferred to a Word document later.

Ted

My logged info

I use a combined travel / maintenance log on a daily use or work day basis. It is a simple spreadsheet printout that has blank data locations for date, engine and generator hrs, fuel purchased by tank location, fuel cost, boat location, GPS distance traveled, and a notes section. I use the notes section to log any engine / electrical / maintenance performed or repairs made. I asterisk the first date column if a major service or repair is done so it is easy to check if oil change or other hr or date based service is needed. Takes about 2 minutes to fill in data.

I also keep file folders for boat related receipts… one for upgrades and one for repairs. The on-boat log and the receipt files have made my past boat sales much easier. I can document when and what was done. This works for me.

I track from where I start each day to where I stop. I include engine hours. I track each time I buy fuel, the cost per gallon and the engine hours.

if the time in the archipelago where I can navigate the visual observations of the various maritime safety signs or islands, so I do not do other markings, as others have written above, but the open sea which does not appear in the other 360 ° as the sea, I mark the paper chart every location within half an hour and check for possible changes in the route. legally it would be good to record in the log book at equal intervals on the location and time, or print the information out of the route plotter which stores time-to-date location. If something happens, and you will be accused of such oil damage, you can prove where you were, what time.

I have a small spiral notebook. When I anchor up, I put location, date, eng hrs, gen hrs, odometer reading and the two fuel tank levels in inches. Then nothing til next stop.

If I do any engine or gen maintenance, I log that too.

When I add fuel, log eng and gen hrs, date, odo, tank levels before and tank levels after and gals added.

That's it in the log.

After a long trip it is fun to calc avg burn rate, speed, nmpg, total gals, total hours, total trip length, etc.

So what do you guys do w all that engine hours data?

Nomad Willy said:

So what do you guys do w all that engine hours data?

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In our case, we use that to guide scheduling of various service points called out in the engine and genset manufacturers' manuals...

-Chris

When Cruising we use a daily log. I have it in Word so I can reprint it....

Here's my cruise log. See, I told you I was anal! The numbers in there were just put in to make sure the formulas that calculate totals are correct.

I log engine hours at start. Departure time. Cruising speed and RPMs. Wx conditions. Sea state. Time when abeam lighthouses or landmarks. Any significant traffic or notices on CH16. Arrival time and engine hours at shutdown. Position of anchor drop. Maintenance done. Fuel taken on. At back of logbook, I list any jobs that need to be done when time allows. Prioritize list as to urgency.

GFC said:

Here's my cruise log. See, I told you I was anal! The numbers in there were just put in to make sure the formulas that calculate totals are correct.

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Again, ours is much like yours, just electronically in software we have. Now, we also keep a log that is more personal, than boat driven, that includes where we've gone, what we did there, where we ate, and comments about the location.

Everything goes into a steno pad. Time of departure, destination, any stops along the way, end point, fuel tank levels, engine hours, any problem needing fixing, and any people we meet. Start a new pad each season. In the front of each pad is all of the boats details equipment serial numbers, part numbers and such for reference.

I developed a format for use in a spiral bound teak covered logbook that belonged to my dad, complete with a custom made brass plate on the front that has a line drawing of the boat and the name engraved. The sheets were duplex printed via laser printer on heavy paper, so they're indelible and have sequential page numbers. Office Depot will punch the pages and have the spiral gizmos to bind the pages into booklet form. I have a section for daily, maintenance, & fuel. When the pages fill, I can remove them and have an archive booklet with laminated covers to keep the older pages. We refer to it often when we're revisiting places, handy for planning or recalling details. Since we cruise with dogs (now dog), we kept a rating of how dog-friendly the stopover was. We log every day of travel, and additional when it seems appropriate. I can be anal with the best of 'em!

Pictures. I take lots of pictures, edit them later, and they become the cruise log.

Maerin said:

I developed a format for use in a spiral bound teak covered logbook that belonged to my dad, complete with a custom made brass plate on the front that has a line drawing of the boat and the name engraved. The sheets were duplex printed via laser printer on heavy paper, so they're indelible and have sequential page numbers. Office Depot will punch the pages and have the spiral gizmos to bind the pages into booklet form. I have a section for daily, maintenance, & fuel. When the pages fill, I can remove them and have an archive booklet with laminated covers to keep the older pages. We refer to it often when we're revisiting places, handy for planning or recalling details. Since we cruise with dogs (now dog), we kept a rating of how dog-friendly the stopover was. We log every day of travel, and additional when it seems appropriate. I can be anal with the best of 'em!

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Wifey B: You certainly win for nicest cover.

New Person at Helm so now I'm here. Logs serve two purposes. One is all the info for the boat to know when what was done and when to do what and how much in between and all the other possible info. I think most of us have that in some form. Separately, we like what I'll call our diary. It's a log of when, where, and what we did. Sites we saw. Things we want to see next time. Restaurants. Plus details on the marina. While we mention marina on regular log book and put notes about it, in the diary is more the feel, the pleasure of being there. Notes about especially nice people working there. It's for memories and for next time. We always plan a next time.

I use a spiral bound lined notebook about 5" x 8". I note the date, location weather, time of departure, I make a note about the location, like any problems or good points. A couple of times a day I'll note the engine RPM and speed, weather, and the time passing landmarks along the route. on arriving I'll note days mileage, the time and destination and any comments on anchorage or marina.
I also note phone numbers, I might need VHF channel references.
When I fill with diesel I'll note gallons used and price and usually work out the MPG.
I note any maintenance issues and ideas for future Boat projects or modifications. I also keep maintenace records in a separate binder.

I also use a 6x9 notebook. I have one page left after six and a half years. I used to write a lot more detail but now I usually just have engine hours and where we went. If we are going on a long trip I will write down times we pass landmarks. Probably as much to stay entertained as anything. I note guests or if we did anything interesting (as I said, I write less and less these days-we hardly have guests and "interesting" is subjective). I tape in things like receipts from overnights at marinas and ticket stubs (hockey, baseball) from events we attended on the cruise, so it is kind of a scrapbook.
Also record all fuel fill ups and oil changes in the log and in a spreadsheet. I also have a three ring binder with all receipts from work done (yard and mechanic) dating back to PO, plus the documentation, insurance info and some other paperwork on the boat.

What do you want to be able to refer back to? Do you like walking down memory lane and recalling details or are you more interested in fuel burn and maintenance records?

ENJOY!

Wifey B: I'm amazed at all the pen and paper. I'm assuming pen, could be pencil. And so little electronic. Generational I guess. We write nothing.

Another old schooler here. Been using those mystic seaport yacht logs for decades on sailboat cruises and they continue to work well for us with a few modifications. Each book covers 60 or so 16 hour trips or about 1000 hours of continuous running. We like to keep an hourly record of the following on any trips longer than 6 hours. Time, Lat/Lon , Course, distance travelled, watch person,fuel used true wind direction and speed, barometric pressure, sea state, sky, visibility, air temp, water temp, engine rpm, SOG, generator back end temp, gen exhaust temp, hydraulic oil temp, engine alternator temps and shaft log temps. There's also extra space for notes you might want to take in transit.

BandB said:

Wifey B: I'm amazed at all the pen and paper. I'm assuming pen, could be pencil. And so little electronic. Generational I guess. We write nothing.

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A notebook can rest in a shoe box for a couple hundred years and still be good. What makes you think today's whiz-bang electronic technology isn't going to be tomorrows 8 track cassette?

I have a semi hard cover log book.
I usually record time, date, engine hours, fuel level at departure & arrival. In between, I record sea state, wind speed and direction, any problems encountered, and sometimes more detailed engine data if I'm monitoring something. (maybe temperature of exhaust or shaft packing, maybe rpm vs SOG)

I'm not obsessive about the log book. I might record measurements for projects, phone numbers, drawings, or ideas in it, but sometimes I write nothing at all during a trip.

BandB said:

Wifey B: I'm amazed at all the pen and paper. I'm assuming pen, could be pencil. And so little electronic. Generational I guess. We write nothing.

Click to expand...

I don't like to bring the laptop to the boat. Laptop is work. boat is fun. for awhile we used a software program on the laptop for navigation but that didn't last long. will use navionics on the phone or tablet as a back up though. those straddle the work / fun boundary.

MurrayM said:

A notebook can rest in a shoe box for a couple hundred years and still be good. What makes you think today's whiz-bang electronic technology isn't going to be tomorrows 8 track cassette?

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Wifey B: Ever heard of printing it out?

Pineapple Girl said:

I don't like to bring the laptop to the boat. Laptop is work. boat is fun. for awhile we used a software program on the laptop for navigation but that didn't last long. will use navionics on the phone or tablet as a back up though. those straddle the work / fun boundary.

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Wifey B: We're never without tablets. Right now on one while waiting for our food.