The Offshore Voyaging Reference Site

Apps to Manage Boat Maintenance and Cruises

Having just published two chapters on how to manage refit and maintenance projects in a boatyard, I’m thinking that it would be useful to share the computer and handheld device software (apps) that Phyllis and I use to keep our boat and cruises, as well as our business and personal lives, organized.

Why is this so important? Well, it’s not for nothing that we call running an offshore cruising boat:

Death by a thousand details.

But there’s a greater point here than just a jokey saying:

Many, perhaps most, cruising disasters are the result of several (often many) small oversights, not one big mistake—the devil is truly in the details, particularly when at sea.

And so it’s well worthwhile finding good software tools to manage those details and then using them religiously—the latter can be harder than the former, but is more important.

Here are the apps we use and what we use them for and, most important of all, why and how.


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Marc Dacey

“…since the sun will burn out first”…thanks for adding a bit of humour to a potentially dry topic!

I’m customizing an Excel spreadsheet for provisions and spares to mate up with the location of said provisions and spares on the boat, because we have a ridiculous number of places to stash stuff aboard, and it could get unmanageable. I’m also attempting to format these spreadsheets so that when the inventory gets below a certain point, the column goes from green to yellow, and if it gets to one or two items left (say, an oil or Racor filter), the column goes to red. This gives a visual prompt as to when to order or acquire certain items. The coffee column, in particular. Thanks for the reminder that the core of seamanship is probably organization, restocking and anticipation!

Dartanyon Race

John, thanks for your insights – can you speak to the differences [as it pertains to the boat] between OmniOutliner and OmniFocus? Also would you care to make available your Excel maintenance sheets that might either be used as templates, or at least as a matter of comparison to what we may be using?

Max Shaw

Useful post as always. Beyond maintenance and storage locations, we also track procurement, passage preparations and diesel usage. We also used to track watermaker performance but we have fallen off that bandwagon.

The procurement sheet is useful to us as items can be categorised based on urgency and practicality i.e. some urgent items can be found in a place like Fiji or the Marshall Islands but other items are easier to obtain when we are in New Zealand either bought locally or shipped in from the US. Even more importantly perhaps for us is the category for items to be carried into the country by guests coming in from Canada or the US.

We also track diesel quantities and usage to ease managing our three tanks and to help improve our understanding of our burn rates at different RPM and conditions

The passage preparations sheet is more of a checklist (maybe an aviation background becomes evident) with a column for all passages and additional column for longer passages. There is also a checklist for leaving the boat for a longer period of time.

Thanks for all the good work.

Max
SV Fluenta
Presently Mcleod Bay, New Zealand

Phil

There is one flaw with your application: A backup or safe guard copy is required. Without a backup, mission critical data can be lost for ever.

I am using EverNote for the last 10 years. Simple to use, works on every type of computers (Mac, Windows…) smartphone, tablets, web browser…

I basically store everything into it, lists, spreadsheets, manuals, pdf, pictures, voice notes, you name it, boat log book, scan documents…

It syncs over the cloud when on line, so that one day I update a note on my iPhone, the next day I continue at my office using my desktop computer, next day over the web via a browser. And all this for free. Don’t even think on backing up. It’s built in because of its cloud capability.

Every time I am coming with an idea, something I must remember, a lost I need to consult, almost where ever I am, I pull my phone, my PC, a web browser and it is there.

The paid version (80$/year?) includes a fantastic search as it can even OCR text on any document or picture you have stored and better offline features.

Love it.

Ernest

John,
for backup I am using BackBlaze (https://www.backblaze.com), costs USD 95,- for two years, and backs up data over the cloud, so it won’t be lost even if the boat goes to the bottom. Worth a look I’d say.

PaddyB

Another vote for Evernote, everything goes in there, filter sizes, saved Web pages, pics of bus timetables, shopping lists, to do lists, serial numbers of gear, you name it then you can actually find it again.
First thing which has actually worked for many things like inventory, to do lists prioritised based on the “ getting things done” method.
Invaluable app. 🙂

Eugeni

Hello John,

I am new to your website. Very useful posts. Please, tell me which version of Todoist do you use – the free or the paid one?

Thanks
Eugeni