The 69th edition (2021) has 920 pages, 1,500 full-color illustrations and charts, and exploded views and cutaways and updated with information on federal laws, regulations, and fees.
It includes much popular new technology – especially communications and electronic navigation/common surveying equipment: GPS, radar, depth sounders/fish finders, chart plotters.
It is the officially recommended book for the U.S. Coast Guard's boating education classes and many local United States Power Squadrons.
[1] The original author, Charles Frederic Chapman (1881–1976), was an avid boater, and the editor of Hearst's Motor Boating Magazine from 1912 to 1968.
Then Assistant U.S. Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, commissioned Chapman to write a manual that could be used to help provide that training.