The Silly Tradition of the US Navy New Year Deck Log

Happy New Year to you all. While this year is different for obvious reasons, in happier times many of us would be out in bars or parties raising glasses with friends and strangers alike.
However there are plenty out there who have to be sober and alert while we’re singing Auld Lang Syne badly. On the Nautilus, we get to enjoy a drink and indulge in bonhomie and banter when the clock strikes 12. However that isn’t the case everywhere in the ocean.

Before I start, I should explain that I love silly rituals and one such ritual of which I have recently learned is the tradition of the New Year’s Day deck log. Deck logs are an essential part of naval process. It’s a written record completed at the end of each watch by the officer of that watch. Throughout naval history it’s been diligently written or typed and is used to record significant events on board or in the vicinity of the vessel - usually weather, locations, movements and anything unusual that’s occurred during the watch. These logs are then circulated and archived by the Navy. Log entries are by necessity serious, factual and procedural.

There is very specific information that needs to be recorded and there can be no exception to this. However in the US Navy there is a tradition going back at least a century. On the New Year’s watch the log is written in rhyme. 

This isn’t as easy as it sounds. The log must specify the course of the ship, the speed at which they travelled, the locations of objects they’ve sighted, the status of their engineering systems and many more highly detailed records. Okay, so you might not win a poetry competition with verses like:

“Our position is in the sea to the east.

Our stomachs are full from the grand midrats feast.

1 alpha, 2 bravo are turning each shaft,

Alpha power units move rudders back aft.”

but I like the fact that out there in the seas, the otherwise deadly serious military machine cracks a goofy smile once a year.

New Year’s Log 1942, USS Gilmer