The latest issue of the Outer Continental Shelf National Center of Expertise’s Drill Down bulletin is now available.

A ship’s logbook has been an essential part of a vessel dating back to antiquity. Used to log everything from voyages, stores, and crew a ship’s logbook or record reliably documents the goings-on of a ship and has remained fundamentally unchanged for years. Now a legal requirement, logs and records are recorded in either an Official Logbook or an unofficial record or logbook.

But what is the difference between an Official Logbook and an unofficial log or record? And what are the requirements for an Official Logbook? This issue of Drill Down explains Official Logbooks for OSVs, when they are required, and when an unofficial logbook is suitable for record-keeping.

Drill Down is the OCS NCOE’s outreach and knowledge management tool for sharing in-house expertise with a broader audience, to assist in educating those interested in the OCS world of work, and to help generate discussion among OCS stakeholders. The goal is to “drill down” the answers to questions regarding the OCS industry. To read other issues of Drill Down, visit the OCNCOE’s online library.

This blog is not a replacement or substitute for the formal posting of regulations and updates or existing processes for receiving formal feedback of the same. Links provided on this blog will direct the reader to official source documents, such as the Federal Register, Homeport and the Code of Federal Regulations. These documents remain the official source for regulatory information published by the Coast Guard.