67 years ago…

Over twenty years since the first edition offered rules and guidelines for boat handling, navigation, safety, and etiquette, the new and enlarged 1944 Edition of Chapman's Piloting, Seamanship and Small Boat Handling could be yours for the price of $2.50, postpaid in U.S.A. (Foreign postage, add 50c) Through 'World War No. 1′ and 'the present war', Chapman's was used instructional text for military training. Now expanded to 416 pages, with nearly 500 illustrations, the 1944 Edition boasted many new features, sixty pages worth, in fact, on motor boat handling, as well as marlinspike seamanship, blocks and tackles, motor boat maintenance and more.

Present day:

We're up to the 66th Edition of Chapman Piloting, with 928 pages 1,500 full-color illustrations and charts, and all these years later it is still considered the essential guide for anyone operating a boat (not to mention wonderful reading on long winter nights.) But while 1944 was expanding into the increasingly popular use of motor boats, 2011 tackles topics such as computerized four-stroke outboard motors, inboard vectored thrust propulsion systems, joystick controls, VHF/DSC radio, networking electronic devices, features and capabilities of GPS, radar, depth sounder, fish finders, and chartplotters, eLoran system, autopilot and more. I can only imagine what future editions will cover.

(Click on the image and then click again to read all the copy – it's quite fascinating.)

 

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