Logbook: logging sea time
Bridgedeck Logbook is a sea-service logbook app for deck and engine crew, on yachts and merchant ships. You sign on to a vessel, log each voyage and each watch, and it keeps the running totals. Here is what it records, how it counts, what it runs on and what is free.
A logbook for your sea service that lives on your phone. It records the vessels you join, your voyages, your watches and your port calls, keeps your certificates with expiry reminders, and turns what you've logged into totals and an MCA-style sea service testimonial PDF.
It is built to keep working at sea: the App Store listing says it “works completely offline”, so you can log a watch with no signal and it backs up when you're back in range.
Seafarers who need a record of their time at sea, from a cadet's first trip to a senior officer's career. The store listing puts it as “Deck and engine; merchant and yacht”.
The ranks you can log under cover the deck side (Master, C/O, 2/O, 3/O, OOW), the engine side (C/E, 2/E, 3/E, ETO) and crew roles such as bosun, lead deckhand, deckhand and cadet.
iPhone and iPad (iOS 15 or later) from the App Store, and Android from Google Play. There is an Apple Watch app (watchOS 10 or later) for starting and ending watches from the wrist, and a Mac version (macOS 10.15 or later).
There is no watch app for Android watches.
The app follows the way a contract actually runs. You sign on to a vessel, which opens the contract. From port you start a voyage; at the next port you end it. Repeat for each leg, then sign off when you leave the vessel.
Once you've signed on, the home screen keeps your days aboard counting, and on a voyage it shows the voyage day and route.
Watches are logged inside your active voyage. Add a watch with the hours you stood (half hours are fine) and an optional note. It is dated the day you add it, so log it the same day. Your watch hours are totalled from these entries.
A saved watch can't be edited or deleted in the app, so check the hours before you save.
The vessel, its gross tonnage or propulsion power, the dates and the distance, port to port. Your logbook list then holds every voyage in one searchable place: search by vessel or port, or filter by year, tonnage, kW, rank or status.
Logbook keeps two numbers and never mixes them. Days aboard run from sign-on to sign-off, the span a discharge book records. Sea days are the days on the voyages you logged; days in port don't count towards them.
Both appear side by side on the Career screen, and both are kept per contract.
No. Logbook records and totals what you did; it does not apply the MCA's qualifying-service rules for you. The MCA's own definitions — at least 4 hours of working duty in 24 hours for a day, stand-by and yard service with their limits, and the recency rule — are set out in our sea time guide.
To check your service against the OOW and Master (Yachts) requirements, use the free sea time calculator.
Automatic totals by gross tonnage, propulsion power (kW) and rank, monthly breakdowns, and progress towards sea-time targets you set yourself. The career totals page goes through them.
Free up to 100 sea days. After that, Bridgedeck Pro, an optional paid subscription, unlocks unlimited logging. The allowance counts sea days, not days aboard, and it includes past service you add to the logbook.
The store listing is explicit that “your existing records are always free to view and export”.
Everything you've logged stays in the app, and you can still view it and export it. What needs Pro from then on is adding more sea time: signing on to a vessel, starting a voyage or adding past service.
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.
