Books with title Carry on Mr Bowditch

Nathaniel Bowditch grew up in a sailor's world-Salem in the early days, when tall-masted ships from foreign ports crowded the wharves. But Nat didn't promise to have the makings of a sailor; he was too little. "Come a high wind at sea, " Granny said, "They'd have to ballast his feet. Might as well educate him. He's quick at figures." As it turned out, Nat didn't have a chance for much schooling. When he was twelve, he was apprenticed to a ship's chandler. From then until he was twenty-one he'd have to work selling marline-spikes, belaying pins, and hemp rope, and keeping the books for the chandlery...

Readers today are still fascinated by “Nat,” an eighteenth-century nautical wonder and mathematical wizard. Nathaniel Bowditch grew up in a sailor’s world—Salem in the early days, when tall-masted ships from foreign ports crowded the wharves. But Nat didn’t promise to have the makings of a sailor; he was too physically small. Nat may have been slight of build, but no one guessed that he had the persistence and determination to master sea navigation in the days when men sailed only by “log, lead, and lookout.” Nat’s 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.