The Sea Chart

Ocean sailing needed skill, courage, and experience, and the sea chart was the tool by which ships of trade, transport, or conquest navigated. This examines the history and development of the chart and the nautical map, in both scientific and aesthetic terms as a means of safe and accurate seaborne navigation. The Italian merchant-venturers of the early thirteenth century developed the earliest "portolan" pilot charts of the Mediterranean. The subsequent speed of exploration by European seafarers to the New World, around the Cape of Good Hope, and on trade routes to the East, India, and the Spice Islands were results of the development of the sea chart. By the eighteenth century, the discovery and charting of the coasts and oceans of the globe had become a strategic naval and commercial requirement. Such involvements led to Cook's voyages in the Pacific, the search for the Northwest Passage, and races to the Arctic and Antarctic.

The volume is arranged along chronological and geographical lines. Each of the ten chapters is split into distinct halves, examining the history of charting a particular region and the context under which such charting took place, followed with specific navigational charts and other relevant illustrations. Key figures or milestones in the history of charting are then presented in stand-alone story box features.

This new edition features forty new charts and accompanying text.

This large-format book provides a broad, graphically-appealing sample of the best in nautical cartography up to the middle of the nineteenth century. - The Portolan

"The magnificent, enduring legacy which Lt Cdr John Blake, RN, has bequeathed to the world is one of those astonishing volumes which changes lives because it transforms the way history is viewed. Thank you, Lt Cmdr Blake. You have become the second Blake to bring nautical greatness to the Royal Navy!" --Defense & Foreign Affairs Special Analysis

"In this lustrous work, John Blake . . . has assembled a mouth-watering collection with which to illuminate this history of cartography." --Classic Boat Magazine

"New books on sea charts are most welcome, especially when they contain material rarely or never previously published. John Blake has trawled a variety of chart collections . . . and has put together a most interesting volume." --Navigation News

"As a Bridge Officer I always greatly enjoyed using those older surveys . . . and John Blake has produced a scholarly work, one of the most magnificent nooks I have seen for some time. A MUST for all navigators and students of the history of navigation." --Gunline (Newsletter of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary)

". . . John Blake's magnificently illustrated and informative book." --Navy News