Sailing Directions

…heavily traveled North Atlantic—appearing in Sailing Directions (1855), prepared by the U.S. naval officer Matthew F. Maury, who also mapped ocean currents worldwide. The danger of running aground was lessened by a worldwide system of lighthouses, lightships, buoys, bells, and channel markers; the development of these aids to navigation is…

In that year his Sailing Directions included a section recommending that eastbound and westbound steamers travel in separate lanes in the North Atlantic to prevent collisions.

In his Sailing Directions (1855), he included “Steamer Lanes Across the Atlantic,” with recommended separate lanes for eastbound and westbound steamers. In 1898, at the instigation of the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office, the five principal transatlantic steamship companies of the day concluded the voluntary North Atlantic Track…