NavList:

"But these volumes were evidently released with all the thoughtfulness of a late-night-Tweet."

I suspect they had a hard deadline and "shipped" whatever they had. By the way, they also changed "Forward" to "Foreword" (I think it was Tony who noticed that one... good catch!). In any case, I think it's clear that they have switched to a "living document" model where changes are made on a regular basis following input from a large number of editors. Find a typo? Update the pdf. Since there is no official print edition, these small changes can occur incrementally, perhaps released annually. You'll notice that the files available for download do not have the year in the filename. This may be an oversight, but it could also be a deliberate choice representing the "current" edition with a fixed download URL.

The current Bowditch still includes the quite mythical biography of Nathaniel Bowditch crediting him with everything except sliced bread. That's a shame. It's bad history, but this is just an encyclopedia for practical navigators. It will always have inadequacies.

Frank Reed