Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

Today, readers are still fascinated by Nathaniel Bowditch, an eighteenth-century nautical wonder. Born in Salem, Massachusetts, and growing up in a sailor's community of tall-masted ships from foreign ports and sailors on shore leave, Nathaniel Bowditch was a mathematical wizard and his knowledge of navigation was revolutionary for his time. Yet Bowditch—although he may have looked slight of build—had the persistence and determination to master sea navigation in the days when men sailed only by “log, lead, and lookout. ” His long hours of study and observation, collected in his famous work The American Practical Navigator (also known as the “Sailors? Bible?), stunned the sailing community and made him a New England hero.