New · iPhone, iPad & Mac

Your Boat's Entire Life, in One Logbook

Every trip, fill-up and fix — voyages, maintenance, fuel, costs, inventory and the ship's papers, in one searchable record that works offline and comes out as a PDF when a surveyor, an insurer or a buyer asks.

Get Marine Logbook

Free to download · optional subscription · seven languages

The Hard Part Was Never Doing the Job

Changing an impeller is twenty minutes. Remembering whether you changed it last season, at what engine hours, and whether the spare you bought is in the cockpit locker or under the aft bunk — that is the part that actually goes wrong. It is why we said, in our boat maintenance checklist, that the schedule only works if you can see when each job was last done.

Most boats answer that with a paper log at the nav station, a spreadsheet that has not been opened since March, and a folder of receipts. Marine Logbook is the same record kept somewhere you will actually have with you — and, more usefully, somewhere you can search.

What Goes In It

Ten purpose-built entry types rather than one blank page, so things can be found later by what they are.

EntryWhat it holds
VoyageRoute, distance, crew and engine hours for every passage
MaintenanceThe work, the cost, the engine hours — and when it is next due
FuelEvery fill-up, so consumption stops being a guess
ExpenseMarina fees, parts, chandlery, sorted by type
InventoryWhat is aboard and which locker it is in
Weather & SeaConditions logged against the passage they belong to
StayMarinas and anchorages, with what they charged
To-DoReusable checklists for the routines you repeat
DocumentInsurance, registration, licence — aboard on your phone
NoteEverything that does not fit a form

What It Looks Like

Marine Logbook entries list showing voyages, expenses and fuel in one feed
Every entry in one feed, filterable by type
Voyage list with route, date and distance in nautical miles
Every passage, with distance and route
Maintenance list showing completed engine, VHF and sail drive jobs
A full service history, job by job
Maintenance entry with cost, next due date and next due engine hours plus a reminder
Next due by date and by engine hours
Inventory list showing spare parts organised by category and stowage location
What is aboard, and which locker
Expense list showing electricity, fresh water and marina fees
Every cost, sorted by type
Reusable to-do checklist for boat shutdown with items ticked off
Reusable checklists you reset each time
Document list showing insurance and survey report stored in the app
Ship's papers, aboard on your phone

Three Things It Is Genuinely For

Never missing a service

Every maintenance entry can carry a next-due date and a next-due engine-hours figure, with a reminder before it lands. Boat jobs run on three clocks — the calendar, the hours, and the condition of the part — and a reminder that understands two of them is the difference between a service history and a pile of receipts.

Finding the part you already own

The inventory records what is aboard and where it is stowed — the raw-water pump impeller in the engine room, the first aid kit in the saloon, the toolbox in the deck locker. Most boats own the spare twice because nobody could find the first one.

Knowing what the boat actually costs

Fuel, marina fees, parts and yard bills logged as they happen add up to the number almost nobody has: the real annual cost of the boat. That matters more than it sounds — as we worked through in the cost of living on a sailboat, the bucket that wrecks budgets is the one that arrives in lumps and gets averaged away.

The day it pays for itself

A documented service history is worth real money when you sell, and it is what an insurer or a surveyor asks for when something has gone wrong. Marine Logbook exports to PDF and CSV, so the record leaves the app in a form somebody else will accept — which is the one thing a shoebox of receipts cannot do.

The Practical Details

  • Works offline. Everything is on the device; iCloud backs it up when you are back in range.
  • Photos and files attach to entries. A receipt, a wiring diagram, the survey report.
  • Search across everything, or filter down to one category.
  • Export to PDF or CSV whenever you need to hand the record to someone.
  • The log carries your boat's name, so it reads as her record rather than a generic app.
  • iPhone, iPad and Mac, in seven languages, with dark mode for the nav station.
  • Free to download, with an optional subscription at $3.99 a month or $9.99 a year.

And While You Are at Anchor

Marine Logbook records what happened. Its sister app watches what is happening right now: Safety Anchor Alarm keeps a GPS anchor watch on your position all night and wakes you if the boat leaves its circle. Both are free to start, and between them they cover the two things a boat needs remembering for — the night you are asleep, and the year you are not looking.

Marine Logbook Questions

What is a marine logbook?
A marine logbook is the running record of a boat's life: where she went, what was done to her, what it cost and what is aboard. Traditionally it was a bound book at the nav station, kept in ink. The entries that matter most are rarely the romantic ones — they are the date the impeller was changed, the engine hours at the last service, which locker the spare alternator belt is in, and what the marina in Ithaca actually charged. A digital logbook keeps the same record, but makes it searchable and hard to lose.
Is there an app to replace a paper boat log book?
Yes — Marine Logbook is a digital boat log for iPhone, iPad and Mac. It keeps voyages, fuel, maintenance, expenses, marina stays, inventory, weather, to-do lists and ship's documents in one searchable place, works offline, backs up to iCloud, and exports to PDF or CSV when you need a paper trail for an insurer, a surveyor or a buyer. The advantage over paper is not the writing, it is the finding.
Can it remind me when a service is due?
That is the point of it. Each maintenance entry can carry a next-due date and a next-due engine-hours figure, with a reminder that fires ahead of time. That matters because boat jobs run on three different clocks — the calendar, the engine hours and the condition of the part — and no single list keeps track of all three. The impeller is due annually whether or not you used the boat; the oil is due by hours; the anodes are due when they are half gone.
Does it work offline?
Yes. Everything is stored on the device, so entries can be made at anchor, on passage or in a boatyard with no signal, and iCloud backup syncs when you are back in range. There is no account to create and nothing that stops working when the connection does.
How much does Marine Logbook cost?
The app is free to download and use, with an optional subscription — $3.99 a month or $9.99 a year — for the full feature set. It is available on iPhone, iPad and Mac (Apple silicon), in seven languages, with dark mode.

Read next

Maintenance

Boat Maintenance Checklist

The schedule on three clocks — calendar, engine hours and condition.

Maintenance

How to Winterize a Boat

Every lay-up is also next spring's instructions — if you wrote it down.

Seamanship

Boat Pre-Departure Checklist

The five-minute routine — the kind of list worth keeping reusable.

Cruising Life

The Cost of Living on a Sailboat

Three budgets, and why the one that arrives in lumps is the one to log.

Start the log today, thank yourself in April

Free to download on iPhone, iPad and Mac. Works offline, backs up to iCloud, exports to PDF.

Get Marine Logbook