| Author | Message | ||
     Ted Lavino Senior Member Username: tlavino Post Number: 460 Registered: 01-2004 |
Greetings All, David asked a very interesting question as a follow-up to a discussion regarding watch keeping in the Rules area. To paraphrase he basically asked how should the recreational boater handle the topic of ship's logs? My 2 cents: 1. Logs are legal documents, and as such can be a double edged sword in terms of helping or hurting the vessel owner involved in a legal proceeding. In some cases its best not to have evidence that can be used against you... 2. There are many sorts of logs: Deck Logs that record the day to day operation of the vessel. This log should contain any standing orders for the crew as well as regular entries for time, course, speed, cumulative or trip log and depth. An addition periodic fixes should be entered as well. Engine Logs that contain operational and maintenance info related to the various powerplants onboard. For example dates and particulars of any maintenance work done (including by whom) as well as the times of engine start and shut down and rpm used , useful in tracking engine hours, fuel consumption in terms of hours and distance as well as battery charging time. Radio Logs that contain contain operational and maintenance info related to the various radios aboard. Specifically information as to any emergency, urgent or hazard to navigation traffic sent or received in terms of time of receiption, sender and pertinent details such as position, course and speed. Information might include: 1. Time 2. Vessel 3. Position: Lattitude and Logitude, or Distance, Bearing, Reporting Point Course Speed or Arrival: Reporting Point ETA 4. Signal Strength 5. Remarks Weather Logs that contain weather data collected periodically, enabling the crew to spot changing trends such as wind or barometric pressure to assist them in their forecasting and routing decision making process. Information might include time of observation, sea state in terms of wave heights and direction, wind speed and direction, cloud cover in terms of % and type of clouds, temperature, humidity and barometric pressure. In our particular case since we're inside the area of responsibility of the Los Angeles/Long Beach Vessel Traffic Service, I would suggest a VTS log that tracks inbound and outbound traffic disseminated by the VTS on VHF channel 14, giving the crew some warning on what kind of traffic they should be expecting. This is particularly helpful as the visibility drops. Information that a VTS log might contain: 1. Time 2. Sector (N/W/S In/Out 3. Vessel Name 4. Range Bearing Reporting Point Course Speed Reporting Point ETA On larger vessels all the above might be kept in separate binders, but for the recreational boater that would probably be overkill. One suggestion is a single binder with tabs for each of the logs. In addition, many folks do away with separate weather, radio and deck logs and combine all three into the deck log, although that tends to make the deck log rather voluminous, diminishing its usefulness. In summary, logs are a very personal thing, and each operator needs to define what information is important to them and be judicious in keeping records of that information. |
