Cheap, Custom Log Book

There are all kinds of options for a sailing log book. You can use an electronic log (laptop or iPad, etc.), blank notebook, custom bound book or something in between. When we started sailing Breeze On last May we used a blank notebook because we hadn't decided on anything else.

 

It was a little bit cumbersome because we had to rewrite all the headings every time we made an entry.

We thought we might go with an electronic log book but realized that we don't always have the iPad in the cockpit and don't always want to keep it in the cockpit. We decided to try to make our own custom paper log book with custom-designed pages.

We first agreed on the headings we found useful and designed a page using Excel. The headings we chose are: date, time, latitude, longitude, course over ground (COG), speed over ground (SOG), apparent wind angle (AWA), apparent wind speed (AWS), true wind speed (TWS), weather and comments. George printed a cover page using the logo for Breeze On. Then, we went to Staples, asked them to print 50 copies of the log book pages and bind them with the cover page on top.

The whole thing cost less than $10.00. We are quite please with it. The only changes I might make in a future version is to add a line at the top to indicate the trip or destination and add more space for comments.

 

On another note, if you follow us using Spot, you will see that we haven't done any sailing for 3 weeks. That is because we took a break to help my mom recover from a badly broken leg. We have been at her home in Florida since she was discharged from a rehab facility. We will be here for another 9 days or so and then return to our home and Breeze On.

 

Posted with Blogsy