sailing casita

When we first started sailing ‘Imi Loa we bought a logbook called “Logbook for Cruising Under Sail” (published by Wiley Nautical). It was a pretty nice logbook, hardbound with good quality paper. By the time we had filled it up we discovered a few things about our how we use a logbook. The Wylie book had columns for recording data that we simply did not use and at the same time we would have liked columns to record other types of data. We also discovered that we tended to use the logbook as a sort of trip journal as much as we used it the way an official ship’s logbook ought to be used.

We looked around for a logbook that would fit us better but didn’t find anything we liked so we decided to design our own. Our first attempt at designing the inner pages was pretty decent but the only binding option we found locally was spiral bound with a clear plastic cover. We didn’t have time for other options so we had it printed and spiral bound. We have used that logbook for the past 2 years and it has worked pretty well for us, but we were never happy with the binding. We wanted real binding, not just spiral, and hardbound if possible.

In preparation for full time cruising we decided to have a 2nd go at creating our “perfect” logbook. I looked at the websites of a lot of book printers. Most printers do not do small orders, with order minimums in the hundreds to thousands of prints. Others that accepted small orders were either prohibitively expensive or did not offer hard binding. So I was super excited to find a company that offered hardback binding with no minimum order for a reasonable price. We designed a cover and made some layout and column changes, uploaded our files, and less than 2 weeks later we had our new log books (we had 3 printed) in hand!

This will be the official ship’s log, we plan to use an actual journal to record everything else. The company we ordered from is Mixam (mixam.com – no affiliation – just a satisfied customer). The total cost for 3 logbooks including shipping and taxes was $102.24 (shipping was $6.92 and sales tax was $9.92). The price varies with options chosen: size (we chose A4), color vs b&w, paper weight, lamination, number of pages, etc. I think the price for one book would have been around $60 so not cheap for a single book but still pretty decent for a custom hardbound book. A logbook off the shelf usually costs around $30.

In other news… we have our TIP! We actually received it via email within 24 hours of submitting our application. Pretty impressive, especially since we submitted it on a Sunday.