Skippers Log
The logbook for your yacht
Free · In‑App Purchases · Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS.
Skippers Log is your digital logbook for your yacht.
Everything you can do in a good old fashioned paper logbook you can do here:
- Create multiple trips for multiple ships
- Record daily navigational data and weather observations
- Include navigational live data from a wireless NMEA server
- Automatic log entries based on the specifications you make (course change, wind change, ...)
- Plot your trip on Apple map or Navionics map (active Navionics subscription required)
- Print your trip with maps as a PDF
- Create crew lists and print them
- AIS targets shown on map (data from AIS receiver required)
- Synchronize between you devices through iCloud
- Display various data fields from NMEA data as overlay on your map
- Fuel, water, cooking gas and outboard fuel consumption can be recorded
- Take and add pictures to any day in the logbook (Premium version only)
- Automatic geotag your position like e.g. "1.6 nm NW of Cape Finisterre"
- Automatic download GMDSS and DWD weather forecasts (Euriope only, premium only)
- Handling daily checklist (premium only)
The free version of this app is limited to 1 ship, 1 trip and 40 manual log entries. Enough for a one or two week charter trip. No NMEA data are processed in the free app.
In app purchase for the premium version and a 14-day free trial of the premium version.
Please note, that the app will principally run on WiFi only iPads, but it is quite limited on these devices. Even if you use NMEA as your location source, automatic logging and track recording will likely reliably only happen while the app is in the foreground. You can still do manual entries, of course. To unleash the full potential you need a device with a gps receiver.
Icons by Icons8
more - New: Move a day, including its entries, pictures and waypoints, to another trip with a swipe
- New: A notice at start when a newer version of the app is available
- Fixed a crash with days and trips that cross the date line (180° longitude)
- Apple Maps: the course vector, AIS and other lines and the distance rings are shown completely again when zoomed in closely
- Fuel consumption is now calculated correctly even if the tank was not filled up completely
- Fixed problems when an external display is connected
1.10.2 Oct 15
- Fixed a rare crash while connecting to the NMEA source (TCP and UDP): an internal timer was occasionally invalidated from a background thread even though it had been created on the main thread.
- A frozen GPS position, where the fused position can get stuck while under way is now detected faster and shown in the status line instead of leaving the position silently standing still.
- Added a new optional setting "Fall back to device GPS if NMEA is lost": while NMEA is selected as the position source, the app now automatically falls back to the device's internal GPS if no NMEA position has arrived for a while, and automatically returns to NMEA as soon as it's available again — without changing your selected source.
- Raised the minimum required iOS version to 15 for technical reasons
- Fixed a rare crash in AIS processing that could occur while new AIS targets kept arriving.
- The lost-NMEA-connection warning is now only shown while under way, not while the boat is moored.
- On devices running iOS 27, location updates now use the activity type added specifically for boats, improving GPS accuracy and reducing incorrect position jumps.
- Fixed the map screen's toolbar buttons not all fitting on screen on iOS 27, with some becoming inaccessible.
1.10.1 Sep 17
- New: polar diagram. While under way SkippersLog continuously records wind and speed data and builds a performance polar for your boat — speed through the water by wind angle and wind speed, separated by sail configuration. Available under Settings/Polar diagram; see the help there.
- Bathymetry: fixed jagged (sawtooth) depth contours on closely parallel tracks. The lateral corridor widening no longer fabricates conflicting depths where real soundings from another pass already exist.
- Fixed an app hang at launch on some devices/connections where the map service initialisation could block the app before it became responsive.
- General stability improvements for iCloud sync.
- Significantly improved device GPS position tracking, especially at low boat speed: occasional wrong fixes (e.g. Wi-Fi/cell-based positioning instead of GPS) are now detected and rejected, a position occasionally frozen by iOS is automatically detected and recovered, and the speed reading stays stable at slow speeds instead of intermittently dropping to 0.
- Fixed a possible crash in the NMEA log view (Settings/NMEA) that could occur with a long-running, large log.
Previosuly fixed in 1.9.1:
- Fixed a crash when adding or deleting a sail while an input field was being edited.
- Fixed a crash when displaying the map with an invalid position or zoom level.
1.10 Jul 24
- There is now a bathymetry module that records the depth data provided via NMEA and displays it on the map, comparable to the Sonar Live Chart view in the Navionics/Garmin app. See Settings/Bathymetry and the help there. Your own measurements can be exported and imported.
- Positions of AIS targets are now dead-reckoned between signal transmissions using the last course vector and speed, and shown as a hollow symbol on the map. This can be turned off in the map settings.
- The app can now also be installed and run on an Apple Silicon Mac. Please note that certain functions are not available on the Mac because the hardware is not present there (GPS, barometer). Position data can therefore only be obtained via NMEA.
- Fixed an error, among others when printing the PDF log, when no internet connection was available for generating the map.
1.9 Jun 19
No functional changes. Update only for App Store.No functional changes. Update only for App Store.
1.8.5 Jan 12
- Fixed a problem, that the app could not correctly detect the iCloud status if the user had disabled iCloud Drive synchronisation but was still logged in to the cloud.
1.8.4 06/23/2025
- Fixed a problem getting TWS if MWD sentence is present but TWS field is empty. TWS from MWV will now used in this rare case or calculated from other data.
1.8.3 05/17/2025
- Fixed a crash of the consumptions window in iOS 18.
- Fixed a problem with consumptions not importing correctly
1.8.2 12/05/2024
- Fixed a problem with the date selector where depending on timezone and time of day an incorrect date would be selected.
- Trying to create a new trip with the same start date as an existing trip will now create an error.
- Printing the log as PDF will now insert a map of the whole trip at the start of the PDF.
1.8.1 11/05/2024
- Improved NMEA diagnostic.
- Added a retention value to the systemlog. System log entries before older than this value in days will be deleted. Default is 7 days and it can be changed int the system log viewer.
- Changed the behaviour of the automooring function. Speed is no longer a factor to be considered. Instead the ship has to stay stationary within a defined circle for the specified time. For details see the help page for the automooring setting.
- On 2 engine boats with engine data provided via NMEA, starting or stopping one engine within 60 seconds of the other will no longer create a second entry. The second action will be merged into the first entry.
- There are two new options in the Logbook settings. They determine if starting an engine or setting a sail automatically unmoors you (as it was standard before) or leave you moored and if mooring automatically stops your engine(s) and lowers your sails (as it was standard before) or let the engine(s) running. You can leave these activated unless you want to record engine data while moored.
- The function of the Moor button in the log entry screen as been changed. It is now possible to manually unmoor by pressing the button while moored. After a confirmation dialog you will be unmoored. You must have an engine running or a sail set to unmoor this way.
- There will be now an alert notification if the connection to the NMEA server is lost. You can deactivate this notification in the NMEA Details settings.
- Added indicators to the log entry to show if engines are running (green) or not (red)
- Fixed some typos.
- Weather observations (temperature, clouds, weather, waveheight) will only be copied to a new log entry if the previous entry is not older than 4 hours. This will prevent starting a new day with the weather from the last day.
- Changing the date of a day will no longer create a new day.
1.8 09/08/2024
- Course display on map below ship icon is now always COG. Was showing heading before if heading data was available.
- In addition to the coursevector a heading vector is now shown, too. You can disable this in map settings.
- The previously fixed 6 seconds timer for translating rpm cange into motort start or stop is now user configurable in NMEA details settings.
- Fixed a problem with mooring not stopping engines internally.
1.7.1 07/29/2024
- Added a new Navionics Settings topic the settings where you can see the status of your Navionics subscription and adjust some chart settings.
- Fixed several problems within the iCloud synchronization.
- Speed limit for automooring can now be edited.
- Improved the feedback when downloading Navionics charts for offline use.
1.7 06/10/2024
The barometer will now work again in iOS 17.4 and later. Because of privacy changes in iOS 17.4 barometric data are bow tied to Motion and Fitness. In order to make it work you have to enable Fitnesstracking in your devices privacy settings under "Motion and Fitness". After restarting Skipperslog you have to go there again and enable Skipperslog, which will now have its own entry there, to access the data.
1.6.10 05/08/2024
- Corrected a wrong dialog text when deleting a ship.
- Added forecast support for Metarea XII - US Westcoast from Alaka to California.
1.6.9 01/08/2024
- Engine hours via the NMEA interface should now be better recognized.
1.6.8 10/09/2023
- Boats with two engines can now stop and start each engine individually. For these ships there are now two engine buttons in the log entry. This works for automatic start and stop via the NMEA interface as well. If your port and starboard engine seem to be switched you have to switch the engine numbers in the NMEA settings.
- When entering a new fuel consumption record, the engine hours will be preset with your current engine hours according to your most recent log entry. With two engines the hours of the two engines are added up and the sum is used.
1.6.7 09/27/2023
You can now enter engine hours and rpm for two engines. You have to set the number of engines to two in the ship data page.
Ships with two engines will always use the alternate calculation for engine hours, regardless of the actual setting of that option.
Clicking on the engine hours or rpm in a log entry will now open a new window for two engine ships, where you can enter the data. The actual fields in the log entry are now no longer editable if you are using two engines.
While using the NMEA interface to automatically detect if you are running under power or not now requires both engines to be stopped to register as not longer running under power.
1.6.6 08/27/2023
- Fixed a bug that prevented the first ship to be created
1.6.5 08/15/2023
- Fixed a crash when an UDP connection could not be established or the NMEA server closed the connection.
- There is now an error message, if you try to use an UDP port that is alread in use on the device.
- There is a new switch in the trip overview, allowing to show trips of all ships at the same time. Selecting and activating a trip from a ship other than the current will also change the ship. - Ships can no longer be changed while in motion. You have to be moored to change ships.
1.6.4 08/12/2023
- Fixed several display problems when the devices uses bigger than normal text sizes.
- Crew members can now permanently be deleted from both trips and pool.
1.6.3 07/12/2023
- Fixed a problem where an invalid character in the ship name or the starting location prevented the PDF of the logbook to be created.
- Closing a day (and entering an evening position at this time) while in the process of opening a new day will now correctly transfer the closed days evening position to the new days morning position.
- Moving to the next day while on the currently last day of a trip will now offer the option to open a new day, unless you are already on the current day.
- Implemented a function to print only parts of the logbook to prevent out of memory crash for logbooks with an extensive number of pictures.
1.6.2 06/27/2023
- A display problem concerning with Apple maps and device rotation has been fixed (was unfortunately introduced in previous version).
- GMDSS weather forecasts are available again.
- Two state 3D buttons are now colored green when pressed to make the state easier to see.
- Added a map button on iPads while editing or adding a log entry as an alternative to cancel/save to return to the map.
- Added an automatic mooring function if the ship is not moving for some time. See the Automoor page in the settings.
1.6.1 05/27/2023
- Fixed a problem that caused memory usage to explode on some devices when using Apple maps in the background.
- Added an autosave settings to the log settings. With this option enabled (default) leaving the log edit screen will automatically save all changes without the need to hit save. You can still use the save button to manually save an entry. Hitting the cancel button will still discard any changes.
- Added functionality to change mutiple entries at once. See the help for details.
1.6 05/19/2023
- Trip overview map can now be closed while using Apple maps.
- Fixed some stability issues.
1.5.12 05/06/2023
- User interface language can now be set manually. See Settings->General.
- Fixed some stability issues.
1.5.11 04/27/2023
- New: Move a day, including its entries, pictures and waypoints, to another trip with a swipe
- New: A notice at start when a newer version of the app is available
- Fixed a crash with days and trips that cross the date line (180° longitude)
- Apple Maps: the course vector, AIS and other lines and the distance rings are shown completely again when zoomed in closely
- Fuel consumption is now calculated correctly even if the tank was not filled up completely
- Fixed problems when an external display is connected
more Version 1.10.2 Oct 15
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