Boating Column: Hefty 200-year-old tome carries weight today

How I spent my summer vacation: reading a chest-crushing tome written more than 200 years ago by the self-taught mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch. If it's not too late, you too might slip "The American Practical Navigator: An Epitome of Navigation" onto your summer reading list.
You can even read it on a laptop, which I did after downloading it free almost two winters ago.
A true classic, Bowditch reads like it was written only recently, in part because the U.S. government has held its copyright since 1867 and continually brings it up to date with developments like satellite navigation, which didn't exist when Bowditch was at the helm.
Like few other books, it creates the feeling that you are one step closer to the big cruise, the long-dreamt trip in which you leave behind those day trips on Lake Washington and, at last, run away to sea.

Read the complete column in the Seattle Times.