Log books and trip planning

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Blackeagle1

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We're about to be new owners of a Ranger Tug R-27, named Polaris. Our boat will be delivered to us at the John Wayne Marina in Sequim, WA next Friday, April 15, 2016. So many thoughts and ideas about our new boat, adventure, and all the details associated with enjoying it underway. I have been browsing the internet to find a useful Trip planning book to also use as a log. I would welcome a suggestion from anyone with a good experience.

As a note we plan to attend the Points NW seminar tomorrow, the Poets Cove trip, Desolation Sound, and the factory gathering in Roche Harbor in September. Ambitious for new owners, but we look forward to the adventures and new friends. Steve Curtis and Terri Bristow
 
Congrats on the R-27. There are some IOS and Android apps that do a good job depending on what you want to capture. I use a simple one called Boating Suite for iPad.

Suggest you search apps for "boating logbook" and you will see some more.
 
We just use a simple personal journal as a log book. It's not sexy but it gets the job done. For trip planning and navigation we use software. Specifically Coastal Explorer by Rosepoint Navigation. There are many options out there but CE was one of the early entries and we've been using it for 10+ years with no real incentive to change. A laptop is much cheaper than a purpose built chart plotter and serves multiple purposes. CE also has log/journal functions but we're old school and like to write it in a book. And of course there are published cruising guides for nearly anywhere you can think of going.
 
Thanks a lot to Snug Tug and Northernfocus. Great suggestions. I'll take them and try to find my way. Steve
 
As Dan on NorthernFocus, we use a simple journal for a log book. Have instant view of trip information, fuel record, maintenance etc, without having to access laptop. For planning I use Garmin Homeport as Costal Explorer will not work on a MacBook. With Homeport I can import, to my MacBook, the map suite loaded in our Garmin 5212 do my route planning save it to a SD card and load back into the 5212 turn on autopilot and sit back with a coffee and enjoy the day. GPS backup I use PolarView on the Mac. Purchased an external GPS antenna from Amazon which plugs directly into a USB port and use NOAA downloads either Raster or ENC.

Mike
 
Same here, a simple bound book and we enter pertinent information for each day. I enter miles traveled that leg and time. I also log when I get fuel and miles traveled. My wife likes to write what we did and pastes in area pictures and such from brochures.
As far as planning goes. I use garmin home port or the garmin blue charts with the iPad. We like to travel around 30 to 40 NM per day. With active captain as the overlay you can then choose marinas, anchorages and places to fuel up. I use excel with a list of my layovers, distances between, accumulated distances and planned days to stay at each stop. I will also put anchoring coordinates and marina info.
Eventually you will figure out what works for you.
 
We've used the Evergreen Pacific spiral bound log book, available from West Marine.

It has separate sections for the trip log, fuel purchases, and maintenance.
The trip log pages give a minimum of structure, which suits me just fine.

My personal criticism of our log keeping, is that it's too place and event-oriented,
And we should include more about what we did and experienced once we
Had arrived. But it's still super useful to go back to.

Jeff
 
We also use the Evergreen Pacific spiral bound log, the pages are perfect for a day's worth of notes and recording of the basic cruise information. We then use the information to create an online photo blog with our log notes and photos interspersed. We tend to take a lot of photos and this is a great way to organize them. Happy Cruising!

Lois and Dan Cheney
North Star R 27
http://www.boatdays.weebly.com
 
Steve and Terri-
HI! Congrats on the new boat! Hope you are having a great time so far in it!!!
Here is a nice trip planning tool we use.
http://www.sailgreeceyachts.com/sailing ... reece.html

It starts in Greece, but you zoom out and over to Sequim and then zoom back in and it is fine. It gives you very good distances and enough info that you can plan a trip around the world if you wanted to. Simple and easy. It is what I waste time with while stuck on a conference call and daydreaming about our future trips in Alaska. We have found that it is SPOT ON for distances.

Hope to see you out on the water. We had a mini-mini accidental rendezvous in Poulsbo this last weekend. 4 Ranger Tugs at the same dock. Great fun. Looking forward to seeing yours. Is it the Black Eagle 1?
Jeff and Ela
Wallowa R31
 
Thanks again to all for your great suggestions. I value them all, especially since they come from your experience. And our Ranger R-27 is named Polaris. Steve Curtis and Terri Bristow
 
might find this site useful for the PNW

http://nwcruising.net/

mileage distances to/from ports in the area with estimated time based on 7 knots
 
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