He contacted the US publisher of the work, Edmund March Blunt, who asked him to correct and revise the third edition on his fifth voyage.

After the first major revision, a total overhaul of the book's content completed in 1880 under the direction of Commander Philip H. Cooper, USN, the name was changed to American Practical Navigator.

The present volume, while retaining the basic format of the 1958 version, reorganizes the subjects, deletes obsolete text, and adds new material to keep pace with the extensive changes in navigation that have taken place in the electronic age.

The 1995 edition of the American Practical Navigator incorporates extensive changes in organization, content, and format.

The changes to this edition of Bowditch are intended to ensure that this publication remains the premier reference work for practical marine navigation.

Concerted efforts were made to return to Nathaniel Bowditch's original intention "to put down in the book nothing I can't teach the crew."

The latest edition was issued in 2019 with freely downloadable PDFs available in the NGA's official website updated to June 2021.

On the Hornet it was used to help save fourteen of the thirty-one-person manifest, after they were forced by an onboard fire to abandon ship.

The ship's captain George Pollard Jr. would later describe The American Practical Navigator as one of "the probable instruments of our salvation.

"[2] Portions of this article originated from the preface of The American Practical Navigator, a document produced by the government of the United States of America.