Thursday 1st June 2023
I mentioned on the introduction page that I am the 'world's worst' at keeping a log on passage and one of the impacts of this was when coming to write up this blog, I was missing all sorts of detail that I wanted to include.
As a result I gave the subject some thought, why was I not keeping a good enough log, what could I do to improve my log keeping, what would help me to keep a good log and use it throughout a passage?
Firstly, I am left handed, corrie-fisted as we say in Scotland, and don't have the neatest of handwriting as I spent my working life thumping a keyboard. I've found the spaces in the RYA Log Book are way too small 'a bit tight' to say the least and with their predefined columns rather limited to recording what somebody else thinks they need to record, not what I want to record.
Secondly, there is never enough space to write things in the log as they are usually about A4 size. This has resulted in things being jotted down on different bits of paper, e.g. amount of fuel purchased on the Peterhead ended up on at least three pages of a notebook and I'm still not sure if that covered every jerry can filled.
As a result I decided to design my own. Prolific has a rather nice hardcover bound A3 log as it needs to conform to coding requirements, this sparked the idea of producing the same size A3 book for Aphrodite with two pages for each day. The left hand page for the entry of data for 24 hours and the right hand side for a narrative. Throw in a few extra areas for crew, weather, route and passage stats and it had all the data that I would need on passage and to be able to write up the blog at a later date.
A few days messing with the word processor gave me a couple of early drafts that were printed off and refined. Once satisfied I found a company online that would take a few PDF files, print, bind and add some covers.
Much to my surprise the cost was cheaper than the RYA Log Book, granted it is not as nice looking, but I want a practical document not something that looks good on the shelf. A3 fits on the chart table.
If anybody is interested in a copy please get in contact.
Data page - sits on the left
Narrative page - sits on the right