Sailing Logbook

Help & User Guide

Getting Started

Sailing Logbook is a simple, personal logbook for day sailors. Use it to log each sail, track your stats over time, and export your data.

Your entries are stored in the cloud and synced across devices. Just sign in with your email to access your logbook anywhere.

Logging a Sail

Tap + New Entry or the floating + button to create a new log entry.

Required fields: Date and Boat Name. All other fields are optional.

Recent boats: When you start typing a boat name, a dropdown shows your most-used boats. Selecting one auto-fills the boat type, model, club, motor HP, gross tons, and boat length from your previous entries.

Optional fields include location, boat type & model, club, motor HP, gross tons, boat length, distance, duration, night time, wind speed & direction, sea state, crew, and notes.

Wind speed: Enter a single value (e.g. 15) or a range (e.g. 12-18) in the Wind (kts) field. You can use a hyphen, dash, or the word "to" to separate the range. Wind direction is a separate dropdown with 8 compass points.

Night sailing: Enter how much of the sail was after dark in the Night field next to Duration. Night time is part of your total duration, not added to it — a 3-hour sail with the last hour after sunset is Duration 180 and Night 60. Night time can't be more than the total duration. It uses the same minutes or hours format as Duration, and entries with night time show a moon icon and the night time in your entry list.

Sea state: Choose from five options describing wave conditions — Calm (flat), Smooth (ripples, up to ~1 ft), Slight (small waves, 1–3 ft), Moderate (longer waves, 3–5 ft), or Rough (5+ ft). Leave blank if not applicable.

Crew: The Crew section has two role toggles (Skipper / Crew) to indicate your role, plus a Crew Names field for listing who was on board (comma-separated). Notes are in a separate section below.

Voice notes: iOS Tap the microphone icon in the Notes section header to dictate notes. The icon turns red while listening. Dictation stops automatically after 60 seconds, or tap the icon again to stop. Transcribed text is appended to any existing notes. Requires microphone and speech recognition permissions.

Editing & Deleting

Edit: Tap any entry in your list to open it. Make changes and tap Save.

Delete: Open an entry, then tap the red Delete button at the bottom. You'll be asked to confirm before the entry is permanently removed.

Swipe to delete iOS — Swipe left on an entry in the list to delete it directly.

Search & Filters

Text search: Type in the search bar to filter entries by boat name, model, club, location, crew, or notes.

Date range: Use the From and To date pickers to show entries within a specific period.

Sort: Web Choose how to order entries — by date (newest/oldest), boat name, distance, or duration.

A Clear button appears when any filter is active. Tap it to reset all filters.

Dashboard

The Dashboard shows your sailing statistics at a glance:

GPS Recording iOS

Record your sail with GPS to automatically capture distance, duration, and speed.

Start recording: Tap the Record button on the entry list screen before you head out. Recording continues in the background.

Pause & resume: Tap the pause button to take a break (e.g., lunch stop). Resume when you're ready — elapsed time excludes pauses.

Stop recording: When your sail is finished, tap Stop. You'll see a summary of your distance, duration, and speed stats. Tap "Save Entry" to create a log entry with the recorded data pre-filled.

Stop reminders: If you forget to stop, the app sends a "Still sailing?" notification when you haven't moved for the time you choose in Settings (20 minutes by default), or when you're moving at driving speed. Tap Stop Recording on the notification (long-press it to see the button) to pause the recording right there, then open the app to save the entry. You can change the time or turn reminders off in Settings.

Recording modes:

Speed stats: Average and max speed (in knots) are captured from your GPS unit's instantaneous speed readings throughout the recording. A 25-knot cap filters out GPS jitter, and very low readings (below 0.5 knots) are excluded from the average so time sitting at the dock doesn't drag it down — peak speed always reflects your real high point. The entry summary and the speed-over-time chart on the map use the same data, so the two always agree.

Map & Speed Chart iOS

Entries recorded with a GPS track show a map of your route and a speed profile chart.

GPS Track Trim iOS

Track trim removes idle time at the start and end of a GPS recording — for example, time spent at the dock before and after sailing.

Automatic trim (new entries): After saving a new entry with GPS recording, the app analyzes your speed data to detect when you were actually sailing. If significant idle time is found, a trim prompt appears automatically.

Retroactive trim (existing entries): Open any entry that has a GPS track and tap the Trim button to re-analyze the track. This works the same way, downloading the track data and running the analysis.

What you see: The trim prompt shows a side-by-side comparison of your recorded vs. detected sailing duration and distance, with the time saved. You can choose:

Your full GPS track is always preserved — trim only adjusts the entry's summary fields. If distance or duration was manually entered before trimming, a warning is shown that trim will replace those values with GPS-derived ones.

Location Auto-Fill iOS

Tap the location pin button next to the Location field to auto-fill your current location using GPS and reverse geocoding.

When the Autofill location & wind preference is enabled in Settings, location and wind conditions are captured automatically when you stop a GPS recording.

Offline Sync iOS

If you save a new entry without an internet connection, it is saved locally on your device.

GPS Tracks & Speed on the Web

Entries recorded with GPS tracking on the iOS app include additional data visible in the web app:

CSV Export & Import Web

Export: Go to Settings > Data and tap "Export All Entries as CSV". A CSV file will download with all your entries.

Import: Tap "Import CSV" and select a .csv file. The file must use the same column headers as the export format.

CSV columns (in order):

Date, Boat Name, Boat Type, Boat Model, Club, Location, Distance (nm), Duration (min), Night Duration (min), Motor HP, Gross Tons, Length (ft), Wind Speed (kts), Wind Direction, Sea State, Skipper, Crew (Role), Crew, Notes

Only Date and Boat Name are required. Boat Type must be one of: dinghy, keelboat, catamaran, other. Wind Direction must be a cardinal direction: N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW. Sea State must be one of: calm, smooth, slight, moderate, rough. Quoted fields and escaped quotes (RFC 4180) are supported. Files exported before the Night Duration column was added still import without it.

Import modes:

Settings

Profile: Set your name, phone, home location, and certifications. This data is stored in the cloud.

Default Boat Type: Pre-selects a boat type when creating new entries.

Default Recording Mode: iOS Choose between "Time & Distance" (basic) and "Full Route Map" (track) as the default when starting a GPS recording.

Recording Display Mode: iOS Choose "Standard" or "Large" display during GPS recording. Large mode shows expanded stats with prominent speed and course.

Duration Input Format: Choose whether to enter sail duration in minutes (e.g. 150) or hours (e.g. 2.5). Duration is always stored in minutes internally — this setting only affects how you enter and view it. This preference syncs between the web and iOS apps via your profile.

Autofill Location & Wind: iOS Automatically captures location and wind conditions when GPS recording stops.

Remind Me to Stop Recording: iOS Sends a notification during a GPS recording if you haven't moved for the selected time (10, 20 or 30 minutes; 20 by default) or are moving at driving speed. Choose Off to turn all stop reminders off.

Change Password: Update your account password (requires current password).

Delete Account: In the Danger Zone section at the bottom of Settings, tap Delete Account, type DELETE MY ACCOUNT to confirm, then tap Delete My Account. This permanently deletes all your entries and GPS tracks, your profile, and your login, then signs you out. It cannot be undone — export your entries as CSV first if you want to keep a copy.

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