Waterproof notebook for sailing: what you actually write on deck, and on what
On a boat you need two books, not one. The logbook is a document: bound, tidy, filled in after the fact, and the first thing an insurer asks for after a collision. The cockpit notebook is a tool: it lives next to the helm, it gets wet, and it holds things you need in three minutes and never again. A waterproof notebook for sailing is that second book. The sheet must not absorb water, it has to work one-handed with a pencil, and it has to survive a season of salt and sun without the pages gluing together.
Most pages on this subject sell you a pre-printed logbook. That is a different product. Below is what the cockpit book has to do, and where stone paper fits and does not.
Is a logbook required on a pleasure yacht?
It depends on the flag and the length. In Europe a logbook is compulsory above 15 metres, and states may exempt pleasure craft below that. Germany does not, and expects recreational boats to keep a proper record of the voyage too. In the Netherlands and the United States most yachts carry no legal obligation, but after a collision, a salvage claim or an insurance dispute the logbook is what carries your account. Hence the split: keep the logbook clean, let the cockpit book get filthy.
What goes in the cockpit book, and what goes in the log?
| Cockpit notebook | Logbook | |
|---|---|---|
| Position and course every hour | Scribbled at once | Copied up neatly |
| VHF traffic and the forecast | Verbatim, with the time | Summarised |
| Sail changes, reefs, engine hours | Yes | Yes |
| What broke and when | Yes, with a small sketch | As a maintenance entry |
| Shopping list, water tank, gas bottle | Yes | No |
| Crew, departure, arrival | Briefly | In full |
The pattern: whatever you write while it happens goes in the cockpit book, whatever has to be right later goes in the log. The first is where an ordinary notebook gives up.
What salt water does to paper
Rain is the least of it. Spray is salt, and salted paper never really dries: the salt draws moisture, the page stays clammy, the ink runs a day later anyway, and the leaves stick. A sheet that absorbs nothing has no such problem. There is no fibre for the salt to lodge in, so a splash dries to a white rim you wipe away with a thumb. Stone paper is ground limestone with a small share of HDPE and no fibre at all, which is exactly why it works on a wet deck.
Two limits, plainly. It is water resistant, not waterproof: a wave across the page is fine, a book that spends a night in the bilge is not, mostly because the cover and the sewing thread get wet too. And sun: a sheet left in direct UV for months loses its binder. A cockpit book that stays on the coaming all season goes brittle. Take it below, the way you would a chart.
Pencil or pen on a wet deck
Pencil. Graphite does not run, marks a sheet that is already wet, and still works with cold hands on a night watch. A ballpoint is a fine second and dries fast. Gel and fountain pens are water-based, and on a sheet that absorbs nothing they sit on top until a wet sleeve smears them. Which pen does what is in does stone paper work with a normal pen. Practical advice no product page gives: tie a short pencil to the book with a lanyard. The first thing to go overboard is not the notebook.
Size, binding and where it lives
A B6 fits an oilskin pocket and the chart-table drawer, and still gives a full line to take down a VHF message. A spiral book lies flat on a knee but the wire rusts and catches on a sheet; a sewn book is slimmer and sheds no pages when wet. Ours is sewn, 64 pages, ruled at 7 mm. No pre-printed columns, and that is deliberate: the logbook already has them.
If you sail mainly to fish, the same story applies with a bait-covered hand added, in the best waterproof notebook for fishing.
Common questions
Can I use stone paper as the official logbook? It is bound and the pages are permanent, so technically yes. But a logbook wants date, position, course and crew in fixed columns, and we do not print those. Buy a proper logbook for the document and use this one for the cockpit.
What does salt do to stone paper? Nothing lasting. There is no fibre to hold moisture, so salt dries to a rim you wipe off.
Will it survive a wave over the cockpit? Yes. Submersion finds the limit, and exactly where that sits we have not measured yet.
Can it stay on deck all summer? Better not. Months of direct sunlight break the binder down. In the chart table or a jacket pocket nothing happens.
Which pen on board? Pencil, on a lanyard, with a ballpoint as backup in the chart table.
The short version
On board you keep a logbook for later and a cockpit notebook for now. The cockpit book has to shed salt and spray, work one-handed with a pencil, and be sewn so it does not lose pages. Stone paper does that, as long as you keep it out of the bilge and out of full sun. The logbook you buy separately, with the columns that belong in it.
So for the next passage: which book sits next to the helm? See how our B6 stone paper notebook takes a splash of spray on the product page. No tree, no bleach, no process water, and here is what that does and does not mean in numbers.
Sources: Yacht.de: Logbook management, compulsory or not, No Frills Sailing: a proper logbook and the legal requirements, Backstay waterproof marine logbooks, KIVI: we calculated our own notebook's carbon footprint