The American Practical Navigator- -Bowditch- Description:

The American Practical Navigator: "Bowditch" review:
5 stars (A 'must' reference for any serious boater) - The 2002 bicentennial edition of Bowditch's American Practical Navigator is a weighty tome prepared and published by the national Imagery and Mapping Agency in Maryland. Packed with international and foreign nautical charts, details on Logan navigation, discussions of navigation regulations and ocean chemistry and properties, and logarithm charts, The American Practical Navigator is a 'must' reference for any serious boater, and for libraries where boaters congregate.
1 stars (No vessel should be without one.) - More than 30 years ago a salty old sea dog who had made his way from the Faeroes to the South China Sea and back, told me, "Son, no vessel should ever be without a Bowditch. There's more in this book than you can ever use."

For the past 30 years I have borrowed and begged and thumbed through other's copies of Bowditch, but until I took the time to peruse my own copy, I never realized how much this one volume actually contained.

Primarily nautical, the wealth of material covered has much wider applications than sailing and navigation: weather observation, cloud types, winds, conversion tables, logarithms, sight reductions.

Whether you are a professional mariner, a weekend sailboater, or a landlubber, the old sea dog's words ring true; "There's more in this book than you can ever use."
5 stars (King of navigation) - 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.