The log of a ship – date, time, position, course – are the vital statistics of her story. The ‘comment’ section should be the vital statistics of yours.
For stark, disjoined facts don’t reveal the truth. We need them joined up for that much-overused contemporary phrase: narrative.
There is something about a sailing vessel and her handling that invites personification, more so than with any other form of transport. It’s something to do with overcoming adversity slowly. It’s a performance you do together: sea, man, and ship. And, because the avoidance of potential grounding, dismasting or blown-out sails is something which happens incrementally, it becomes a deep experience, a truth which can be relayed via the saga.
With this in mind, I set out to judge the logs of sailors…