By John Macek
This July marks the 100th anniversary of the Office of Coast Survey’s Nautical Chart Manual. First published on July 10, 1920, as Special Publication No. 66, under the title “RULES AND PRACTICE RELATING TO CONSTRUCTION OF NAUTICAL CHARTS”, the 34- page pamphlet codified the essential guidelines to be used by cartographers of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey.
Continue reading “Nautical Chart Manual guides cartographers for 100 years”This week, as part of the 40th anniversary of the XIII Olympic Winter Games in 1980, the Lake Placid Olympic Museum launched the exhibit, Foretelling the Future – The National Weather Service at the 1980 Olympic Winter Games. These Olympic Games stand out in our collective memory as the venue for the “miracle on ice,” when the U.S. hockey team beat the 4-time Olympic champions, the Soviet Union. Little do most people know, however, another kind of team was pulling off a small miracle of their own at these games.
By Capt. Albert “Skip” Theberge (NOAA, ret.)
Research conducted by the NOAA Central Library uncovered a little known fact that NOAA Coast Survey’s skill in reproducing maps helped ensure that early maps of Washington, DC, and an interesting piece of history, weren’t lost. Coast Survey reproduced three historically significant maps from a copper plate engraving of Washington, DC, as surveyed by Pierre L’Enfant and Andrew Ellicott.
Continue reading “NOAA preserves history of Washington, DC, with reproduced L’Enfant maps”
One of the most popular recurring questions received by NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey involves customers – typically fishermen – wanting to obtain a chart with a Loran-C navigation grid on it. Here are a few inquiries from NOAA’s Nautical Inquiry & Comment System:
Continue reading “Navigating waters before GPS: Why some mariners still refer to Loran-C”
As Women’s History Month draws to a close, NOAA announces the release of Women of the NOAA Corps: Reflections from Sea and Sky, a documentary that highlights the important role women play in the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps.
Continue reading “NOAA releases documentary on women’s service in the NOAA Corps”
NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey and Office of National Marine Sanctuaries created a commemorative nautical chart for the Battle of Midway’s 75th anniversary. This nautical chart was first published in 1943, and the commemorative chart includes the original depth soundings surrounding the islands overlaid with historical photos from the battle.
Continue reading “New commemorative chart marks the Battle of Midway’s 75th anniversary”
On April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany, in the World War that began three years earlier, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. By 1918, over 30 percent of Coast and Geodetic Survey personnel were on active duty with the Army and Navy. With 272 members of the C&GS in active military service, and 5 survey vessels transferred into naval service, the Survey curtailed much of their regularly scheduled hydrographic work. Instead, personnel directed most of their energies to the assistance of the military branches, with the remaining hydrographic parties conducting special confidential surveys for the Navy Department. Continue reading “Coast Survey in World War 1: “an instant and eager response to the country’s call for help””
One of Coast Survey’s navigation response teams (NRT) recently responded to a request by the State of Florida, who needed help surveying a submerged prehistoric archaeological site located offshore of Sarasota County. Last week’s survey and investigation were necessary to map the full extent of the site and the surrounding area. Continue reading “Coast Survey joins Florida to survey sensitive site”
On this date in 1807, President Thomas Jefferson approved an act to provide for surveying the coasts of the United States. NOAA has long honored Jefferson — but what of the legislators who saw the need, wrote the bill, and sent it to the president?
On December 15, 1806, Samuel W. Dana (CT) introduced a resolution instructing the House of Representatives’ Committee of Commerce and Manufactures to “inquire into the expediency of making provision for a survey of the coasts of the United States, designating the several islands, with the shoals and roads, or places of anchorage, within twenty leagues of any part of the shores of the United States.” Dana was joined in debate by Jacob Crowninshield (MA-2), the chair of the Committee of Commerce and Manufactures. Continue reading “It wasn’t just Jefferson. Congress initiated Coast Survey legislation, approved #OTD 210 years ago”
History is never completely written. There are always new discoveries, new understanding.
NOAA historian John Cloud recently sent Coast Survey an intriguing report:
Yesterday I was looking for some historic Chesapeake Bay T sheets [topography drafts]… Anyway, down in the bottom of a folder, there was a zipped file, dated 2009, never unzipped. I thought: well, since I have noticed this now, why don’t I unzip it? It turned out to be two overly rescaled jpgs, but using my Keith Bridge tricks [a technique developed by a former Coast Survey historical chart expert] I found the two full-scale originals. It was one chart, with a small part cut off to make two separate files: the original 1838 hydrography for New Haven Harbour!
Continue reading “What does a zip file have to do with historic slave ship AMISTAD?”
