Coast Pilots
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The front cover of Coast Pilot Volume Five. |
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| Purpose: | Provide detailed information about U.S. near-coastal waters. |
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| Publication Frequency: | Yearly |
| Published by: | National Ocean Service |
| Available Online: | "United States Coast Pilot". |
United States Coast Pilot is a nine-volume American navigation publication distributed yearly by the Office of Coast Survey, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Ocean Service. The purpose of the publication is to supplement nautical charts of the waters of the United States.
Each volume of the United 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.
Information comes from field inspections, survey vessels, and various harbor authorities. Maritime officials and pilotage associations provide additional information. Each volume of Coast Pilot is updated regularly using the weekly United States Government's weekly Notice to Mariners.
Coast Pilot volumes provide more detailed information than the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency-produced multi-volume Sailing Directions publication because Sailing Directions is intended exclusively for the oceangoing mariner.
Various charts and pilot books for North American waters were published in England 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 the American Coast Pilot, first produced by Edmund M. Blunt in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1796. In 1833, Blunt's son Edmund E. Blunt accepted employment with the United States Coast Survey, and this began a relationship between the Blunt family and the Coast Survey in which the Coast Survey provided hydrographic survey information to the Blunts for incorporation into the American 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.
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