KODOMLC hours of rest template for yacht crew
The record every commercially operated yacht has to keep, and most fill in badly at month-end from memory. Here is the standard template as a free download, the rules in plain English, and the honest list of where boats actually get caught.
What MLC actually requires
The Maritime Labour Convention (MLC 2006) sets minimum rest, not maximum work, and it is measured on rolling windows, not calendar days. For yacht crew on MLC-applicable vessels the numbers are:
10 hours of rest in any 24-hour period. Rolling, so a hard turnaround can breach it even when each calendar day looks fine.
77 hours of rest in any 7-day period. Also rolling: seven busy charter days in a row is where this one dies.
At most two rest periods per day, one at least 6 hours, and no more than 14 hours between the end of one rest period and the start of the next.
You must keep a record for every seafarer, in the ship's working language and English, signed monthly by the master (or a person the master authorises) and by the seafarer. This is the document a flag-state or port-state inspector asks to see.
Where yachts actually fail: back-to-back charters, dual-role crew (the deckhand who also runs the tender at midnight), watch rotations that drift from the plan, and records reconstructed from memory at month-end. The fix is recording rest as it happens, against the real watch pattern.
One sheet per crew member per month: the standard half-hour grid, daily totals, and the signature block your inspector expects, plus a plain-English rules sheet. No email address required.
What people ask
Do private yachts have to keep hours of rest records?
MLC applies to commercially operated yachts of 500 GT and above flagged with ratifying states, and most commercial yacht codes (such as the Red Ensign codes) apply rest-hour rules to smaller commercial yachts too. Purely private yachts are generally outside MLC, but many run the same records as best practice, because fatigue does not check the registry. Verify your own flag and code: this page is practical guidance, not legal advice.
Does the 10 hours of rest have to be continuous?
No. It may be split into a maximum of two periods, one of which must be at least 6 hours, and the gap between consecutive rest periods must not exceed 14 hours.
Who signs the record?
The master, or a person the master authorises, and the seafarer, monthly. The record should exist for every crew member and be available for inspection.
Can software generate this record automatically?
Yes. KODO derives each crew member\u2019s daily rest record from the watch rotation, duty patterns and absences, flags forming violations before they become breaches, and exports the monthly signed PDF. The template on this page is the same record kept by hand.
Or never fill this in by hand again
KODO produces this record automatically from the work the crew already do, flags problems as they form, and exports the signed document your flag inspector asks for.
See it on a live demo boat