Logbook: testimonial PDF
The MCA counts your sea service from testimonials signed by the Master. Bridgedeck Logbook fills in an MCA-style testimonial from what you've logged, one per contract, as a PDF you print, check and take to your Master. It is a pre-filled form, not an MCA document: until your Master checks and signs it, nobody has vouched for what's on it.
A Sea Service Testimonial for one contract, filled in from your logbook. The store listing describes it as “ready to print and sign in ink”: the details are typed in, and the Master's report and signature lines are left blank for the Master.
It is a PDF, so it is also a clean record of each contract that you can keep and share.
The PDF is MCA-style: it is laid out like the MCA's testimonial, but Bridgedeck is not the MCA and does not verify your service. What the MCA asks for is a testimonial signed by the Master of the vessel, in the format in Annex A of MSN 1858 Amendment 2, and it checks testimonials it receives. Whether any service is accepted is the MCA's decision.
So the PDF saves you filling in the form by hand. It does not replace the Master's signature, and it does nothing on its own until it is signed.
Your full name, date of birth and discharge book or passport number, from your profile. The vessel's name, IMO number, type and gross tonnage, and your dates of joining and discharge, from the contract. Your days of actual sea service, stand-by service and yard service, with NIL where there were none. Your watchkeeping days. And Table A, listing each voyage you claim stand-by after.
Before you export, you can enter or correct the company details, your identity details and the yard service days on the export screen.
Everything the Master has to write: the report on your conduct and ability and general comments, and the endorsement — the Master's name, position in the company, CoC number, issuing administration, signature, date and the ship or company stamp; and the lines on other duties and leave of absence, which the Master deletes or fills in. The Table A signature column is blank too.
From the watches you logged. A date with at least 4 hours of watches on it counts as one watchkeeping day, and no date counts as more than one.
As we read the current officer's form, watchkeeping may also be recorded cumulatively — every 4 hours is a day, even across different 24-hour periods. So if your watches were split across dates, the app's figure can be lower than what you could claim. Check it before your Master signs.
You record the stand-by days you claim when you end a voyage or log a past voyage, and they fill Table A. The form itself carries the MCA's limit: at most 14 consecutive days at a time, and never more than the voyage before it.
Our advice: compare it line by line with the current form in Annex A of MSN 1858 Amendment 2, linked below. That form also asks for the vessel's load line length, the areas cruised and the Master's email address — if your PDF doesn't carry a field the current form asks for, add it or use the MCA's own form.
Check every figure is what you actually did. If any sea days came from a backfill estimate, the PDF shows that estimate. Before you ask for a signature, delete the estimated entry in the app and log the actual voyages with Log past voyage, so the testimonial carries real figures.
The Master of the vessel the service was on. For service as Master, the MCA's form says it must be signed by the yacht's owner, operator or manager.
The app does not capture a drawn signature; the signature lines are deliberately left for ink and the ship or company stamp. You can print the PDF, or send it from your phone's share sheet to email or a messaging app.
Our advice: the PDF is the officer's testimonial (service as Master, Chief Mate or OOW), laid out from an earlier edition of MSN 1858. If you served as a deckhand, bosun or cadet, the MCA has a separate yacht rating / deckhand testimonial: use that form, because the officer's form records watchkeeping in full charge of a navigational watch. If you're an engineer, or on merchant ships, check which testimonial your certificate route asks for before you rely on it.
Yes. Logbook is free up to 100 sea days, and your existing records are always free to view and export, including after you pass 100.
Yes. The app runs in 18 languages, but the PDF always stays in English.
The notices change. Always check the current version on GOV.UK before you apply or book.
Study and Logbook are both live on the App Store. Open either to get started.
