Logbook Lite
The Digi­tal Logbook for the Small Trip
*** New version 2.0 with input option for log values – now available in App Store ***
*** Nouveau : maintenant avec une interface utilisateur en Français ***

Logbook Lite

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Our logbook for the small trip

Easy to use but still a full featured logbook

Logbook Lite is a digi­tal logbook for the iPhone, aimed at all sail­ors and power­boaters who tend to make small trips and crui­ses, rather than going on big trips.

With Logbook Lite you can keep a simple logbook with little effort, which still meets the offi­cial requi­re­ments for log­books. It even works on the small screen of the iPhone, for which the user inter­face is optimized.

What Logbook Lite offers you

The input areas of Logbook Lite are cle­arly divi­ded and you decide which areas to use accor­ding to your pre­fe­rence. In the simp­lest case, only data about the start and end of the trip is recorded.

If you want to enter more infor­ma­tion in your logbook, you can, for exam­ple, enter when and at which log value the engine was swit­ched on and off again or you set sail. You can also enter inter­me­diate posi­ti­ons (as a GPS posi­tion or as a free loca­tion) and con­ti­nuously enter cur­rent wea­ther data or have it ente­red from the onboard instru­ments in Logbook Lite.

In the jour­nal you can keep a diary and record tech­ni­cal infor­ma­tion. You can also insert photos into the logbook. With acti­va­ted track­ing func­tion Logbook Lite records your route as Goo­gle­Track and dis­plays it in the logbook.

Of course, the logbook crea­ted with Logbook Lite can be saved as a PDF or prin­ted. For this pur­pose Logbook Lite offers opti­mi­zed and cle­arly arran­ged lay­outs.
Log­books crea­ted with Logbook Lite can also easily be impor­ted into the Logbook Suite module Biography Logbook Lite is thus inte­gra­ted into the Logbook Suite system.

As lan­guage for the user inter­face of Logbook Lite can be sel­ec­ted German, Eng­lish, French, Dutch or Swe­dish. The manual is available in Eng­lish and German.

Logbook Lite is available as a stan­da­lone app and as a module of Logbook Suite Pho­ne­Tools.

Logbook Lite as a stan­da­lone app: The start window offers prac­ti­cal func­tions for ope­ning, loa­ding, saving and dele­ting the Logbook Lite files.
Logbook Lite as a module of Logbook Suite Pho­ne­Tools: In addi­tion to the func­tions for ope­ning, loa­ding, saving and dele­ting the Logbook Lite files, you can also use some of the proven modu­les of Logbook Suite with this app.

How to keep your logbook with Logbook Lite

1 – Keep your Logbook – minimal version

The card 📆 is used to record the cen­tral data of the logbook day. If you want to keep your ent­ries to a mini­mum, the fields on this card are sufficient. 

2 – Logbook enhancement 1: diary, photos and track

On the card 📓 Logbook Lite offers some func­tions that turn your logbook into a ship’s diary. Via the GPS of your iPhone, Logbook Lite can regu­larly record your posi­tion and create a track of your jour­ney and dis­play it on a Google Map. 

3 – Logbook enhancement 2: recording times, …

On the card ⏱ you can record times and log values for engine ope­ra­tion, sai­ling and pauses. Logbook Lite cal­cu­la­tes the engine ope­ra­ting hours, the sai­ling time and the total dura­tion of all pauses from the times ente­red here and, using the log values, the distances covered under engine and under sail.

… places …

On the card 📍 you can record at which place or at which GPS posi­tion you were at a cer­tain time. 

… and weather observations

Wea­ther obser­va­tions can be ente­red on the card 🌦. If available in the NMEA on-board net­work, some wea­ther data is taken from the instru­ments. For the air pres­sure the mea­su­red value of the iPhone baro­m­en­ter can be used.

Your ship — all data in one place

In the view Ship you can coll­ect a whole range of important infor­ma­tion about the ship. This way you always have ever­y­thing at hand. If you have alre­ady kept a logbook for your ship with Logbook Suite, you do not need to enter the ship data. You can import them from the logbook file. 

Logbook Lite can retrieve data from NMEA data sources con­nec­ted to the iPhone via WiFi or Bluetooth. The con­nec­tion bet­ween Logbook Lite and the data source is estab­lished via our app LogbookNMEA con­nect, which can be down­loa­ded free of charge from the Apple App Store. On our Sup­port site we pro­vide a list of the hard­ware for which there are ready-made set­ting sets (get there by cli­cking on the bottom button in the right column or on Smart­phone at the bottom of this page). Please cont­act our sup­port if you want to use hard­ware that is not listed here.

Summary of trips per type

Via the freely sel­ec­ta­ble type your trips can be sum­ma­ri­zed and eva­lua­ted accor­ding to topics.

Total evaluation of all trips

The view Sum­mary shows a list with the eva­lua­tions of all types as well as an over­all eva­lua­tion over all entries.

Your logbook kept with Logbook Lite as evidence

We hope that this case will never happen, but unfort­u­na­tely there might be a situa­tion where you have to use your logbook as evi­dence.
In some forums you can read about this topic: “Throw your logbook over­board if you are invol­ved in an acci­dent. Then no one can prove any­thing against you.” But that is the worst thing you can do. Because that dis­qua­li­fies you as a skip­per and puts you on a worse foo­ting from the start. 

A well-kept logbook is con­side­red proof of good sea­man­ship – and this is one of the basic requi­re­ments for a skip­per. The more you have noted in your logbook during the voyage, the better. That’s why we also recom­mend using the addi­tio­nal entry opti­ons on the cards ⏱, 📍, 🌦 and 📓. 

In the Inter­na­tio­nal Regu­la­ti­ons for Pre­ven­ting Col­li­si­ons at Sea there are only vague state­ments about how exactly a logbook for recrea­tio­nal boating has to look like and what has to be recor­ded in it. There is still no men­tion of digi­tal log­books, alt­hough these are declared as allo­wed in other places. 

The key requi­re­ments are that it must be a bound book­let or book. Loose sheets are not per­mis­si­ble. Pages may not be torn out. Fur­ther­more, it must be reco­gnizable if ent­ries have been chan­ged sub­se­quently. The logbook must not be writ­ten with erasable pens.

Logbook Lite has inte­gra­ted num­e­rous func­tions that trans­fer these requi­re­ments to the digi­tal world, ensu­ring that your logbook is evi­den­tial: Dele­tion of alre­ady crea­ted ent­ries is not pos­si­ble, seve­ral inde­pen­dent time stamps show where ent­ries have been chan­ged later and with his signa­ture the skip­per con­firms the cor­rect­ness of the entries

Your free trial of Logbook Lite

Con­vince yours­elf of Logbook Lite with our free trial ver­sion. The trial ver­sion offers all fea­tures of the full ver­sion, but is limi­ted to 5 days.
The but­tons in the right column of this page (on smart­phones at the bottom of this page) lead to the down­load of Logbook Lite from the Apple App Store. You can either down­load the app Logbook Lite or the app Logbook Suite Pho­ne­Tools, which offers other tools hel­pful for the skip­per bes­i­des the logbook. On our down­load page (go here) you can also down­load detailed manuals.

If we could con­vince you of Logbook Lite, you can purchase a licen­ses in our online shop and con­vert your trial ver­sion directly into a full version.

Topics on this page 

Logbook Suite for PC

Load your free Demo Version for Mac or Windows

Logbook Suite for iPad

Load your free Demo Version from the Apple App Store

Logbook Suite PhoneTool
for iPhone

Load your free Demo Version from the Apple App Store

Logbook Lite
for iPhone

Load your free Demo Version from the Apple App Store

LogbookNMEA connect

Load our app for the NMEA connection of Logbook and Logbook Lite from the Apple App Store (free of charge)

User Manuals

Download our detailed manuals to Logbook Suite, Logbook, Logbook Lite and the Add-ons

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LogbookNMEA connect

List of devices supported by
NMEA function for iPad