2002 American Practical Navigator - Bowditch - Paperback Book

The American Practical Navigator, known to mariners simply as “Bowditch,” traces its lineage to Nathaniel Bowditch’s New American Practical Navigator of 1802. The U.S. government bought the copyright in 1867 and has published it ever since as Pub. No. 9.

The 2002 Bicentennial Edition, prepared by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, brought the former Volumes I and II together in a single book. Its 37 chapters are arranged in eight parts: Fundamentals, Piloting, Electronic Navigation, Celestial Navigation, Navigational Mathematics, Navigational Safety, Oceanography and Marine Meteorology. Topics run from geodesy, datums and nautical charts through compasses, dead reckoning and tides to radar, satellite and Loran navigation, sight reduction, emergency navigation and weather routing. Mathematical, cartographic, piloting, celestial and meteorological tables follow the text.

NGA returned Pub. No. 9 to two volumes with the 2017 edition, so this is the edition to choose if you want the complete Bowditch text and tables in one volume, the edition that saw widespread use in civilian, military and commercial fleets. This copy is a print-on-demand paperback.