Official Log Book

Watkins Superyachts’ Guide to completing the Official Log Book, for Captains of large yachts under the British or Red Ensign group registries.

The Official Log Book is a ghastly document. For those fortunate enough to have sat in tedious agony through Shipmaster’s Business and Law at college for their commercial qualifications, it will be familiar in principle, but for those who wisely took the less academic route, it won’t. Like all legal documents aimed at seafarers, it is carefully designed to be user hostile. The blissfully unaware will have joyously consigned it to the bottom of a bridge locker with pyrotechnic flares and old Notices to Mariners.

The Official Log Book is required to be carried on any British flag vessel where a crew agreement is opened, which includes yachts registered in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Isle of Man and other territories linked with the Red Ensign Group. A similar document is used in other territories (e.g. Bahamas and Hong Kong) that have adopted the same or a parallel format and constitutes a document recording a number of events required by law. It should not be confused with deck, bridge or engine log books which may be required by individual managers or Captains and are intended to record events of a routine operational nature. As a legal document, it can be the Captain’s greatest
defence or most merciless adversary when required to be produced in a court of law. Whilst it has always been a requirement to complete an Official Log Book, enforcement has been minimal. As a result, maritime lawyers have volumes of anecdotes of unwary Captains being caught out when presenting an incomplete or incorrectly completed log book to an official enquiry.

The requirements to record safety inspections, musters, drills, steering gear tests, births and deaths are self-explanatory, however these are not as self-explanatory as the average seafarer would prefer them to be. As a consequence, we have produced a small booklet explaining in terms even we, as simple sailors can understand, of what and what not to put in the Official Log Book, as the regulations for completing log books are by and large unreadable. If anyone would like a free copy of this, please e-mail us at info@watkinssuperyachts.com with a postal address.