 The front cover ofCoast Pilot Volume Five | |
| Frequency | Yearly |
|---|---|
| Publisher | National Ocean Service |
United States Coast Pilot is a ten-volume Americannavigation publication distributed yearly by the Office of Coast Survey, a part of theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration'sNational Ocean Service. The purpose of the publication is to supplement nautical charts of the waters of theUnited States.[1]
Each volume of theUnited States Coast Pilot contains comprehensive sections on local operational considerations and navigation regulations, with later chapters containing detailed discussions of coastal navigation; an appendix provides information on obtaining additional weather information, communications services, and other data. An index and additional tables complete the volume.[2]
Information comes from field inspections, survey vessels, and various harbor authorities. Maritime officials and pilotage associations provide additional information. Each volume ofCoast Pilot is updated regularly using the weeklyUnited States Government's weeklyNotice to Mariners.[2]
Coast Pilot volumes provide more detailed information than theNational Geospatial-Intelligence Agency-produced multi-volumeSailing Directions publication becauseSailing Directions is intended exclusively for the oceangoing mariner.[2]
Various charts and pilot books forNorth American waters were published inEngland beginning in 1671, but the first book of sailing directions, charts, and other information for mariners in North American waters published in North America was theAmerican Coast Pilot, first produced byEdmund M. Blunt inNewburyport,Massachusetts, in 1796. In 1833, Blunt's son Edmund E. Blunt accepted employment with theUnited States Coast Survey, and this began a relationship between the Blunt family and the Coast Survey in which the Coast Survey providedhydrographic survey information to the Blunts for incorporation into theAmerican Coast Pilot and the Blunts sold the Survey's charts, while the Blunts served as influential allies of the Survey in defending the Survey against its critics and lobbying for funding of the Survey's efforts.[3]
Other than providing information to the Blunts for publication in theAmerican Coast Pilot and charts for them to sell, the Coast Survey relied exclusively on articles published in local newspapers to provide its information to mariners. This began to change in 1858, when the Coast Survey'sGeorge Davidson adapted an article published in aSan Francisco,California, newspaper into an addendum to that year'sAnnual Report of the Superintendent of the Coast Survey. It was the first time that the Coast Survey had published a mariner's guide of any kind outside of a newspaper or the Blunts'American Coast Pilot, and it is retrospectively considered the first example of what would later become theUnited States Coast Pilot.[3]
Twenty-one editions of theAmerican Coast Pilot had been published by the time George W. Blunt sold thecopyright for the publication to the U.S. Government in 1867. Although by that time theAmerican Coast Pilot already consisted almost entirely of public information produced by the Coast Survey anyway, the transaction placed responsibility for regular production of the publication with the Coast Survey for the first time. The publication existed under various names until 1888, when the nameUnited States Coast Pilot was adopted for volumes covering navigation along theUnited States East Coast andUnited States Gulf Coast. Thirty years later, the name also began to be applied to volumes covering theUnited States West Coast and theTerritory of Alaska.[3]
The Coast Survey, known from 1878 as theUnited States Coast and Geodetic Survey, continued to publish theCoast Pilot until it merged with other U.S. Government agencies to form theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on 3 October 1970. The Office of Coast Survey in NOAA'sNational Ocean Service has published them since then.
| General references | | |
|---|---|---|
| Nautical charts | ||
| Lights and buoys | ||
| Geographic information | ||
| Celestial navigation | ||
| Tidal information | ||
| Radio information | ||
| Periodicals | ||
| See also | ||
