BoatOn Book Checklists: 7 Worked Examples and How to Build Them
An inspector comes aboard. He does not ask whether the safety round was carried out; he asks when, by whom, and what was found. That is usually where things get awkward. The round did take place, the crew remembers it, but the sheet stayed in the mess, signed by a rating who has since paid off.
The paper checklist never had a content problem. It has an evidence problem. And for a technical superintendent running six vessels from ashore it has a second, more awkward flaw: it does not travel. On a Tuesday morning there is no way of knowing which checks were actually performed across the fleet the previous week.
The BoatOn Book treats both issues the same way. A checklist there is a reusable template attached to specific vessels and to specific moments in the operating cycle. Here is how to build one, with seven examples you can put to work straight away.
The principle: a template, its locations, a traced execution
The distinction to grasp before anything else is between the template and its execution. The template is created once, under Settings then Checklists, and defines the structure: sections, and within each section the items to be checked. The execution happens on board, as often as the checklist appears: on every voyage, every maintenance task, every breakdown.
Each item in a template can take one of three forms, and that choice determines the quality of what you will be able to use afterwards:
Yes/No. The item is accepted or rejected with a single tap. This is the default form, suited to anything that is either done or not done: a greasing, a round, a visual check.
Quantity. The item expects a number. You set an expected quantity, and whoever performs the check enters the actual figure. The relevant component can be attached to it, for instance the port engine oil filter, so that consumption is tied to the right piece of equipment.
Description. The item opens a free-text field, useful when the point is not to tick but to describe: an unusual noise, the condition of a part, a meter reading.
An item can also be assigned to a named person, which removes the familiar grey area where everyone assumes somebody else dealt with it. Finally, the template is attached to one or more assets, and for each of them you choose the locations where it should appear: the start of a voyage, or a specific task such as an annual VHF check or an engine breakdown. One template can therefore serve three vessels with different triggers.
Seven checklists worth putting in place, moment by moment
The examples below are deliberately short. A checklist nobody finishes is worth nothing, and the most common mistake is trying to put everything in it.
1. Start of voyage: the daily departure
This is the most profitable checklist of the seven, because it catches problems before letting go rather than offshore. It is attached to the start-of-voyage location and therefore appears in the logbook each time a voyage is opened. Aim for five minutes, no more.
Before departure. Engine and gearbox levels checked (Yes/No) · Bilges dry (Yes/No) · Bridge alarms tested (Yes/No) · Mooring lines and fenders stowed (Yes/No).
Safety. Number of lifejackets on board (Quantity, against the required outfit) · VHF tested on channel 16 (Yes/No) · Liferaft within its service date (Yes/No).
Operations. Fuel level on departure (Quantity) · Weather consulted and conditions acceptable (Yes/No) · Master's remarks (Description).
2. Arrival and end of voyage
Many operators stop at departure and leave the return to word of mouth. That is a pity, because the end of a voyage is when the crew knows exactly what did not work properly, and the only moment when the information is still fresh. Nothing prevents a second checklist from riding in the same logbook, completed before saving and closing the voyage.
Shutdown. Engines stopped and battery isolators opened (Yes/No) · Sea valves closed (Yes/No) · Mooring and fenders in place (Yes/No).
Readings. Engine hour meter at end of voyage (Quantity) · Fuel remaining (Quantity) · Black and grey water levels (Quantity).
To report. Defect observed during the voyage (Description) · Consumable to be replenished (Description) · Vessel left clean and ready to sail again (Yes/No).
That last point deserves a pause. On a charter or shuttle fleet, the gap between "the boat is back" and "the boat is ready to go again" is precisely what causes a missed turnaround the following morning, something we examined in the context of charter catamaran fleets.
3. Preventive maintenance: the 500-hour service
Here the checklist is not triggered by a voyage but by a task. You attach it to the maintenance task concerned and it opens with it. The real value of the Quantity format becomes apparent at this stage: by attaching the item to the component, you know not merely that the oil change was done, but on which engine and with how many litres.
Oil changes and filters. Engine oil changed (Yes/No) · Engine oil used, in litres (Quantity, attached to the engine concerned) · Oil filter replaced (Quantity, attached to the port engine oil filter) · Fuel filter replaced and water separator drained (Yes/No).
Transmission and controls. Level and condition of gearbox or sterndrive oil checked (Yes/No) · Control cables greased, throttle and gearbox (Yes/No) · Condition of coupling and shaft line (Description).
Circuits. Anode condition and estimated wear in per cent (Description) · Raw water pump impeller condition (Yes/No) · Clips tightened and no leak after trial run (Yes/No).
This logic follows directly from what we set out in our guide to preventive ship maintenance: what is not recorded at the moment of the intervention is never recovered afterwards.
4. Corrective maintenance: the breakdown
A corrective checklist is not there to repair anything. It is there to stop the information being lost at the very moment everyone is busy repairing. It attaches to breakdown tasks, and its value is measured six months later, when someone has to explain to an underwriter or a charterer what happened.
Findings. Description of the failure and the circumstances (Description) · Date and time of occurrence (Description) · Hour meter at the time of the failure (Quantity).
Made safe. Equipment isolated and locked off (Yes/No) · Vessel made safe, operations suspended if required (Yes/No) · Owner and operations informed (Yes/No, assigned to the master).
Intervention. Parts replaced and quantities (Quantity, attached to the components) · External contractor and report reference (Description) · Trials carried out after return to service (Yes/No) · Photographs attached (Yes/No).
5. Periodic safety checks
Monthly fire check, weekly round, annual VHF check: these are short but recurring checklists, and their value rests entirely on regularity. Attach them to the corresponding periodic tasks rather than to voyages, otherwise they will fire far too often and end up ticked without being read.
Fire. Extinguishers in place, sealed and within date (Quantity) · Gauge pressure within range (Yes/No) · Fire blanket accessible (Yes/No) · Detectors tested (Yes/No) · Emergency stops and fuel shut-offs tried (Yes/No).
Radio and safety. Fixed and portable VHF tested (Yes/No) · EPIRB within date, date recorded (Description) · Navigation and emergency lights working (Yes/No).
Survival equipment. Liferaft within its service date (Yes/No) · Lifejackets inspected, number correct (Quantity) · Lifebuoys and self-igniting lights in place (Quantity).
6. Inventory and vessel handover
One last case, particularly useful in charter, managed ownership or at a change of crew: the inventory checklist, which serves as a joint condition report. It attaches to the start of a voyage on fleets where every departure changes hands.
Statutory outfit. Safety equipment complete against the applicable rules (Yes/No) · Tender and outboard present (Yes/No) · Main and secondary anchors (Quantity).
Onboard equipment. Navigation electronics functional (Yes/No) · Crockery and bedding, number of sets (Quantity) · Ship's toolkit complete (Yes/No).
General condition. Scratches, damage or missing items noted at handover (Description) · Photographs of the initial condition (Yes/No) · Signed off by the person taking over (assigned to that person).
7. Extreme conditions: the low-water checklist
The six templates above assume normal operations. The summer of 2026 was a reminder that part of the inland and coastal fleet now spends several weeks a year working in degraded conditions: severe low water, heatwaves, rapid changes in level. The subject takes up a full session at France's national inland waterways convention. In such periods the usual checks no longer suffice, because the nature of the risk changes: it is no longer wear that threatens the vessel, it is the riverbed.
Rather than weighing down the departure checklist all year round, it is better to build a supplementary template, switched on only for the duration of the episode and attached to the same locations as the daily departure. Here is an outline, to be adapted to your fleet and your navigation area:
Before departure. Consult notices to skippers and water level forecasts (VNF, ELWIS for the Rhine), along with the permitted draughts section by section · Calculate the actual draught, including load and trim, and the under-keel clearance at the critical points: sills, fords, passes, weirs · Adjust the loading plan by reducing cargo and correcting trim to avoid squatting by the stern · Clean the strainers and cooling water filters, and carry spare filters · Check the echo sounder, its calibration and its depth alarm set to the safety threshold · Prepare anchors and winches, since the usual mooring points may end up out of the water.
Under way. Reduce speed in shallow sections to limit squat · Monitor engine temperature and cooling water pressure continuously · Record any contact with the bottom immediately: time, kilometre point, speed, draught · After a grounding, check vibration, bearing temperatures and rudder behaviour, then sound the holds and ballast tanks.
Alongside or laid up. Check that the depth at the berth will remain sufficient if the level keeps falling, to avoid grounding alongside · Adjust mooring lines to the changing level · Check the oil for contamination and, where possible, inspect propeller and rudder by diver or camera.
After the episode. Schedule an inspection of the underwater hull (propeller, nozzle, rudder, shaft line, bottom plating) at the next slipping · Review the recorded groundings to identify the stretches and the units at risk · Report any damage to the underwriter within the deadline and keep the evidence, photographs and logbook entries.
Two details deserve attention when building the template. Actual draught and under-keel clearance are better captured as Quantity than as Yes/No, since those are precisely the values you will want to compare from one vessel to another and from one week to the next. Recording a grounding, by contrast, calls for a Description field: contact with the bottom has to be described, not ticked, and that is the line an underwriter will read six months later.
What the manager sees, and why the conversation changes
From ashore, the point is not that boxes are ticked but that the unticked becomes visible. Each checklist shows a completion rate and a counter per section, of the kind three items out of five. A technical superintendent no longer has to ask whether the work was done: they can see what was not done, and on which vessel.
Quantity items add a second layer, often the more telling one. When the actual figure drifts persistently from the expected figure, the checklist is not at fault: either the vessel's consumption is drifting, or the expected value was badly calibrated. Either way the information is worth looking at. It is the same reasoning that leads teams to abandon spreadsheets: not because Excel ticks badly, but because it compares nothing.
Finally, named traceability settles the question we started with. Every execution carries its timestamp and its author, and the comments left at the end of a checklist stay attached to the voyage or the task. For an owner operating under the ISM Code, that is precisely the material an auditor asks for.
Building a checklist in the BoatOn Book, step by step
From the Settings menu, open Checklists. The list shows the existing templates, the vessels or entities they are attached to, the locations where they appear, their author and the date they were last modified.
Click Add a checklist and give it a self-explanatory name. Prefer "Daily shuttle departure" to "Checklist 2": the name is what the crew will see on board.
Create a first section with Add a section, and name it by theme rather than by order: Oil changes and filters, Safety, Readings. Sections structure the reading and drive the completion counter.
Add items as Yes/No or Quantity depending on what you expect back. For a quantity, set the expected figure and attach the relevant component so that the entry is recorded against the right piece of equipment.
Where it matters, assign an item to a person using the add-person icon to the right of the line. Keep this for the points that genuinely belong to a defined role.
At the foot of the template, choose the associated asset, then the locations in the "this checklist will appear in" field. Use Add an association to repeat the operation for another vessel, with different locations if needed.
Finish with Save template. The checklist will then appear automatically wherever you chose, for example in the Checklist tab of the logbook when a new voyage is created.
Five mistakes that make a checklist useless
Too long. Beyond fifteen or so items per moment, completion collapses and boxes get ticked without being read. Two short checklists at two distinct moments work far better.
Ambiguously worded. "Check the engine" means nothing and proves nothing. "Engine oil level between min and max" can be verified, challenged and defended.
Attached to nothing. A template tied to no asset and no location will never appear on board. It is the most common reason a checklist is created and then forgotten.
No quantities where they belong. Making everything Yes/No throws away the only data you can work with afterwards: litres, hours, numbers of parts.
Never revisited. A checklist should be revised after every serious breakdown. If a failure had no chance of being caught by the existing checklist, it is the checklist that needs correcting.
A well-built checklist does not transform a crew, and it is no substitute for seamanship. It does something more modest and more useful: it fixes the minimum standard below which nobody drops, on tired days as much as on handover days. Everything else, the traceability and the remote oversight, comes on top. For how these pieces fit with the rest of the operation, the BoatOn Book modules page sets out the detail, and our guide to marine CMMS places the subject in its wider context.
Photo credit: Pexels, free licence.
