Nathaniel Bowditch authored THE AMERICAN PRACTICAL NAVIGATOR (hereinafter Bowditch) in 1802, an encyclopedia which has been used by every mariner since its publication. This book has not just been sitting on a dusty shelf these past 200 years without any updates … that’s where Story comes into the picture. 

Story has the enviable position of making sure Bowditch’s legacy continues as a reliable navigation source in the present day, despite modern satellite navigation systems which have all but replaced celestial navigation. Story’s unique job title, “Bowditch editor,” tasks him with the responsibility to uphold Bowditch’s high standards for accuracy in maritime navigation.

Being the “editor for Bowditch” is an ancillary duty to Story’s main position as a publications writer. This primary duty includes updating and maintaining the 43 Sailing Direction publications NGA’s Maritime Safety Office is congressionally required to provide free to the public for the safe navigation of all U.S. flagged vessels. This includes both U.S. military vessels and privately-owned U.S. merchant vessels.

Story’s job requires him to stay in contact with numerous experts on a variety of topics to ensure Bowditch reflects the latest information.

“As the Bowditch editor I reach out to various subject matter experts across the numerous topics covered within the text to keep the information as accurate and relevant as possible,” said Story. “When information requires updating, I will reach out to a second subject matter expert for a peer review of the information, and once verified as accurate, I update the required text within our publication software and ensure the structure and flow of the publication ensures readability.”

Story is currently the only editor for Bowditch, but that doesn’t mean others in the publication branch couldn’t take over his duties. The skillsets required to be an editor are the ability to communicate with subject matter experts in the maritime industry and expertise in the publication software. 

Becoming an editor for this legacy publication started with a call for volunteers, and Story jumped at the chance to work with a book he had used throughout his military and civilian mariner career.

“When the previous Bowditch editor was preparing to retire, our office asked for volunteers to take over the duties and I volunteered,” he said. 

“For me, Bowditch has always been an important book. This is the book I used during my career at sea, and being involved with the publication in any way always tickled a small part of my brain,” he continued. “Having the chance to add anything to this text, I couldn’t say no.” 

Story has had to contend with the vast technology gap which has expanded over the 200 years since Bowditch was first published. Navigation has changed and evolved. The fundamentals are still the same, but the days of “sailing by the stars” have come to an end. With the invention of radar, GPS, accurate time keeping and many other things that make our lives easier in general, much of the information in the text has changed. 

“Where a sailor in the 1800s could get their skills perfected to getting a position in 20 minutes with an accuracy of a couple of miles, today’s sailors just look at a computer screen and have the same information with just a glance,” Story added.

Story says the maritime community is currently experiencing a sea change in how it navigates around the world. The use of paper charts is getting phased out, with a shift to the use of computers and electronic charts. NGA’s Maritime Safety Office is confronted with many questions about this change and best practices for keeping the legacy information. 

“Do we keep the old ways in the publication? Do we now include the use of ECDIS [Electronic Chart Display and Information System]? Do we keep the section about the pre-GPS system called LORAN [long-range navigation]?” queried Story. “These are some of the things that we look at during editing. Lucky for us, all the tables within the publication are static tables, meaning the information doesn’t change over time.” 

Most of the tables in Bowditch are used for calculations for celestial navigation; and for some of these tables, Bowditch is the only publication containing that information. 

Historically speaking, THE AMERICAN PRACTICAL NAVIGATOR is “an epitome of navigation.” Nowhere else is the knowledge to navigate the high seas available in a format which can be used in the event of electronic failure. There are various computer programs that can do everything within the book, but what happens if GPS fails, or the ship loses all power? 

Bowditch, Volume 2 is also a resource used by the U.S. Coast Guard for merchant mariner testing. Up until 2023, the 1981 edition of the second volume was being used in the exam room, and this greatly aided every mariner while testing for a license.

In the 1970s, Bowditch was split into two volumes, with a more in-depth explanation of maritime processes in Volume 1 and the “needed” things in Volume 2 for navigation. This made it so mariners only need to carry one of the volumes in their sea bag. For the 1995 edition, these volumes were merged back into a single volume. Because of this, most mariners continued to carry just volume two of the 1981 edition with them to sea and the exam center “froze” the 1981 edition for use while testing. 

When the previous editor began preparing for the 2017 edition of Bowditch, he coordinated with various interested parties, and they agreed to again split Bowditch into two volumes. He worked for a couple of years to update and split Bowditch, as the last update was in 2002. Part of the reason for this decision was he knew the U.S. Coast Guard Exam Center would be updating their policy and testing reference material.

Now, the exam center has changed from the 1981 edition of Volume 2 to the current 2019 version of Volume 2. However, the current edition of Volume 2 is missing a lot of the information available in the 1981 edition. The information is still in the full Bowditch, but it wasn’t moved back to Volume 2 during the 2017 split. 

Story is currently working closely with contacts from all the maritime academies and the U.S. Coast Guard Exam Center to get Volume 2 to where it needs to be for the testing mariner.

Story relates what steps he goes through to keep Bowditch current and relevant for the times.

“I make all changes within the publication software when a subject matter expert submits a change. I then reach out back to the original subject matter expert and to at least one other subject matter expert as a peer review. When the changes are peer reviewed, I will then make the change within our master copy of the publication. I will note the change or changes, the paragraph or pages number," said Story. "This will also be reviewed by another editor within our branch, usually one of the Sailing Direction editors.” 

“Once these have been reviewed, the last step is to save the document as a PDF for publication to our website. This PDF is again reviewed by myself and our product disseminator to ensure that the PDF was created properly,” he said.

During the start of the COVID lockdown, a recently retired private citizen reached out with some questions about navigation. It turned out that he was always interested in navigation and decided to use Bowditch to learn more. Over the course of a couple of months, he read all of volumes 1 and 2 and submitted over 100 minor editorial errors he found, many of which Story edited. Many of these were an “if” instead “of”— the retiree found a format error created when the PDF was generated and many other small corrections that help with readability. 

“This is something I feel was invaluable and I was grateful for his input. I even added him to our acknowledgements in the preface,” said Story. 

These changes were made to the June 2021 update to the 2019 edition.

THE AMERICAN PRACTICAL NAVIGATOR is not the only publication maintained by NGA’s Maritime Safety Office. With a few exceptions, most maritime products are available to the public, for free, for safe navigation at sea. Over the years, NGA inherited, and now owns, numerous publications that are needed by the maritime industry — and ensures these publications remain relevant.