Marine Glossary

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Coast Pilot

One of a series of ten sailing directions published by the National Ocean Service, that cover a wide variety of information important to navigators of U.S. coastal and intracoastal waters, and waters of the Great Lakes. Most of this information cannot be shown graphically on the standard nautical charts and is not readily available elsewhere. This information includes navigation regulations, outstanding landmarks, channel and anchorage peculiarities, dangers, weather, currents, visually conspicuous objects, ice, freshets, pilots, and port facilities.

Areas covered by each volume are illustrated in our new Interactive Index to Coast Pilot Volume Coverage for details.

Usually shortened to Coast Pilot. Each Coast Pilot is corrected through the dates of the Local Notice to Mariners shown on the title page and should be used with reference to the Notices to Mariners issued subsequent to those dates, although for most applications to small craft navigation, even an out of date Coast Pilot is much better than having none at all.

The Coast Pilot is a good place look for charted landmarks by name. They are organized by chart number. There is also an index that includes place names.

The first appendix to each Coast Pilot is a comprehensive list of addresses and phone numbers for all government agencies that provide services related to marine navigation, weather, and communications. Some private agencies or commissions are also included.

Weather information is typically included in separate locations in each Coast Pilot:

(1) in the introduction to each section and chapter there are general discussions relevant to the entire parts covered and then

(2) in the individual sections as the book proceeds along the coast the local weather is discussed when significant, and finally

(3) In older editions, there were Appendices devoted to weather data, but these have been moved to the body of the text in new editions.

Samples of Coast Pilot climatic data for wind, seas, and visibility are presented in a convenient graphic form in G219, G220, and G221 of the Weather Trainer software (WXT).

Sailing Directions for foreign waters (with similar data and format to the Coast Pilots) are published by the NGA. See Sailing Directions and Planning Guides are given in References section of WXT