Donald Launer first recognized the need for a reference guide of nautical abbreviations and acronyms when he came across a term with which he was not familiar. Although I have had a USCG captain's license for 25 years and I have written over 300 articles for recreational boating magazines, He writes in the introduction, I was stumped. With his Dictionary of Nautical Acronyms and Abbreviations, Launer provides a comprehensive work, which attempts to translate industry and government abbreviations into everyday speech.The book is made up of two parts: Part I, Common Acronyms and Abbreviations, is an alphabetical list of definitions of about 650 abbreviations, some with accompanying illustrations. For example, Dev, the abbreviation for deviation, is defined as the difference between a vessel s compass bearing and its true magnetic bearing it s different for every boat, and changes depending on the boat s heading and angle of heel. Below the definition, an example of a typical deviation chart further illustrates how the deviation is calculated, with an S-shaped line curving east then west.Part II is a truncated version (around 500 entries) of NOAA s Chart No. 1, United States of America: Nautical Chart Symbols, abbreviations, and Terms, and is especially useful as the NOAA document is no longer in print, points out Launer. Examples include COL REGS defined as collision regulations, and LWF & C, or low water full and charge.