Logging Past Experience

Logging your adventures out on-the-water is a very important part of building your Trusted Sailing Resume. Each trip builds upon your sailing experience and allows you to keep practicing and sharpening your skills.

Likely you have past experience that you would like to include in your Sailing Resume on the Sailing Resume Blockchain. This experience may go back months, years, or even decades. This article will help you quickly add all of your past experience as accurately as possible.

First it is best to organize your past experience. If you have sea service forms from the US Coast Guard as part of your USCG credential renewal or application process, start with these forms.

If you do not have detailed records including days or months for your experience, do the best you can to organize your past experience into days or logbook entries per year.

Remember that the USCG sets the standard of four hours of on the water time counts towards one (1) qualifying day. Eight (8) hours (or 12) DO NOT count as two (2) qualifying days. This standard is applicable for most documentation for up to 100 GT vessels. Verified Sailor utilizes this standard when presenting your Sailing Resume. If you are unsure but know a logbook entry qualifies under the standard, we recommend entering six (6) hours in the Duration field. If you are unsure if an entry met the standard, either omit it (do not create an entry) or utilize three (3) hours in the Duration field.

I Have Detailed Dates & Information

• Congrats on keeping detailed information! This process will likely be easier for you.
• Add any vessels and crewmates that you will need.
• Navigate to the New Logbook Entry Screen (Logbook->New Entry).
• Use the Logging a Trip screen to add in each of your logbook entries from your existing logbook data.
• Most of the data fields will stay the same so you should start with your oldest entry first, and then will only need to change the date, hours, sea miles, etc. for each additional logbook entry.
• If you did not track data for wind speed or weather conditions, use the 'Unknown' value for these fields for all past experience logged.
• If you did not track the sea miles, approximate using a reasonable average speed * duration (hours) field.
• If you did not track the location type (great lakes, near coastal, offshore, or inland), use Inland/Lake for the Location Type field.

Using USCG Sea Service Forms

• Add any vessels and crewmates that you will need.
• Navigate to the New Logbook Entry Screen (Logbook->New Entry).
• Use the Logging a Trip screen to add in each of your logbook entries from your USCG sea service forms.
• These forms organize qualifying days by year and month for a single vessel. For example, if you have 15 qualifying days in January 1995, to input the first qualifying day, set the date to January 1, 1995. Make your entry and then for the second qualifying day, change the date to January 2, 1995. Repeat as necessary.
Note: If your sea service forms have 32 days for January (in any year), you know your form is wrong as it is impossible to have 32 days qualifying experience for any single month.
• Proceed through the months and years until all of your qualifying days from all your sea service forms are entered. It is likely easier to do a single vessel (form) at a time.
• On your sea service forms, you will have a total number of qualifying days for great lakes, near coastal, and offshore locations. Be sure to apply the correct number of qualifying days into each 'Location Type' field when Logging a Trip. This will likely take some planning to ensure that they all match up for the entire form as the sea service form is multi-year.
• Use the entries from the form average hours underway for the 'Duration' field. As it is likely impossible to remember the wind speed or weather conditions, use the 'Unknown' value for these fields for all past experience logged.
• Approximate the sea miles using a reasonable average speed * duration (hours) field.

Using Groupings by Year

• Add any vessels and crewmates that you will need.
• Navigate to the New Logbook Entry Screen (Logbook->New Entry).
• Use the Logging a Trip screen to add in each of your logbook entries.
• Start on January 1 of the earliest year you will be making logbook entries for.
• For each number of logbook entries for the year, proceed to the next day. For example, the first entry for the year 1995 would be logged on January 1, 1995. The second logbook entry would be on January 2, 1995. The 83rd logbook entry for 1995 would be on March 24, 1995, which was a Friday.
• Continue with each year starting over on January 1 until you have completed all entries.
• If you are unsure but know a logbook entry qualifies under the USCG qualifying day standard, we recommend entering six (6) hours in the Duration field.
• If you are unsure if an entry meets the USCG qualifying day standard, either skip the entry or utilize three (3) hours in the Duration field.
• As it is likely impossible to remember the wind speed or weather conditions, use the 'Unknown' value for these fields for all past experience logged.
• Approximate the sea miles using a reasonable average speed * duration (hours) field.
• If you have no idea of the experience was great lakes, near coastal, offshore, or inland, use Inland/Lake for the Location Type field.

Operational Experience

If you can credibly remember your operational experience (such as docking at marina) from the past, you may use the Adding Operational Experience article to go back in time and add relevant experience as desired.