The American Practical Navigator: "Bowditch" (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Marine navigation blends both science and art..." (more)
Key Phrases: less dangerous semicircle, celestial equator system, water lunitidal interval, United States, Air Almanac, North Atlantic (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This is a new edition of The American Practical Navigator, "Bowditch," offered by Celestaire and Paradise Cay Publications. This new edition is the most recent update of Bowditch, the definitive work on navigation.

Nathanial Bowditch first published this encyclopedic work in 1802. During the last two centuries over 75 editions, almost 1,000,000 copies, of Bowditch have been published by the US Government. It has lived because it has combined the best technologies of each generation of navigator. This new Bicentennial Edition includes the latest advances in electronic navigation and digital charting technology. It also covers nonelectronic navigation such as celestial, plotting and dead reckoning. Bowditch contains numerous tables which have been valued for years by practicing navigators.

Bowditch is carried on the bridge of every U.S. Navy ship and should be the mainstay of any serious navigator’s library. Paradise Cay and Celestaire’s commercial edition of Bowditch is a complete copy of the latest Government edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 896 pages
• Publisher: Paradise Cay Publications (September 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0939837544
• ISBN-13: 978-0939837540
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.6 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #51,064 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not an essential, but a very desirable book, June 5, 2000

By	Joseph H Pierre "Joe Pierre" (Salem, OR USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The American Practical Navigator: An Epitome of Navigation (Hardcover)

If you intend to navigate upon the ocean, out of sight of land, using only celestial bodies as your "lighthouses," there are three absolute necessities: a sextant (or other means of getting the exact altitude of the sighted body); a nautical almanac or ephemeris, preferably the current issue (or a considerable ability with spherical trigonometry and an encyclopedic knowledge of the movement of celestial bodies--particularly the one you are using); and an accurate timepiece set to, or correctible to, Greenwich meridian time (Coordinated Universal Time).

Given those things, and some paper and a pencil--and ideally, a chart and a few simple instruments, like a pair of dividers or compasses, a straightedge and perhaps a set of parallel rules or a pair of triangles, you should do very well--provided that you also know how to use all of the above.

With American Practical Navigator, you can find the knowledge you need to use the above tools. It's all in there.

It is one of the textbooks used by the United States Naval Academy to teach celestial navigation, as well as the United States Power Squadrons. I am a full certificate member of the latter.

American Practical Navigator is not an essential book. There are other texts that are useful in learning celestial navigation; but, it is by far the best.

Nathaniel Bowditch, the original author of the American Practical Navigator, was born in 1773, in Salem, Mass. He sailed as a ship's master, and worked as a cooper and ship's chandler, but his all-consuming interest was in mathematics. He learned French, Spanish, German, Latin and Greek in order to absorb the discoveries of others, and at the age of 16 was reading Newton's 'Principia,' translating it from Latin--and he found errors. He later published his own findings, and they were accepted. He wrote his first almanac at the age of 15. He developed an new, simplified method of determining lunar distance, and on his voyages began to find errors in John Moore's 'The Practical Navigator,' the leading navigational text. The rest, as they say, is history.

The current American Practical Navigator, Nav Pub. No. 9, published by the Defense Mapping Agency Hydrographic Center, is in two volumes.

Any serious student of celestial navigation will want a copy.

Another volume, similarly useful, and a good adjunct to your library, will be 'Dutton's Navigation & Piloting.'

With these two volumes, and the current Nautical Almanac and your instruments, the world's seas become your thoroughfare.

Joseph Pierre, N
Author of THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS: Our Journey Through Eternity

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars King of navigation, June 30, 2004

By	GEORGE R. FISHER (Boston MA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Although it appears intimidating, it's actually quite readable. It happens also to be the very pinnacle of all marine navigation guides; all others refer to it and every navigator/pilot should own a copy.

But (a) it's enormous in both physical volume and weight and (b) it does get updated. What to do? ...

A search on "nga bowditch" will provide you with the current pdf version, chapter by chapter on the web.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DO NOT PAY THIS PRICE!, January 30, 2000

By	Daniel Howard (Oregon, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The American Practical Navigator: An Epitome of Navigation (Hardcover)

This is a government press. and I believe it may even be against the law to charge more than twent percent of cost. I am a graduate from a merchant marine academy and was required to buy these books. EXECELLENT book however. There is a new volume (combined)and it is not as good as the two seperate volumes.