Narragansett Bay & Newport, Rhode Island 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Nautical Chart
How the Water Becomes Wood
A chart is a stack of flat sheets until the water's real soundings tell it what shape to take.
- SurveyReal bathymetric sounding data sets every contour line before a single cut is made.
- CutEach depth band is laser-cut from its own sheet of Baltic birch, up to nine layers deep.
- StainWater layers are stained by hand, reading darker the deeper the water runs.
- StackThe sheets are registered and stacked in sequence, and the bed's true shape rises out of the wood.
- EtchDepths and place names are burned into the grain itself, never printed on it.
- FrameA solid Baltic birch frame and acrylic glass finish the piece, ready to hang.
Narragansett Bay and Newport in stacked Baltic birch, 24.5 by 31 inches: Rhode Island's great bay, its islands and passages, and the harbor that hosted the America's Cup for half a century, cut one depth contour per layer.
The bay splits around its islands into three passages, and knowing which one to take in which wind is the local education. Conanicut and Prudence sit mid-bay, Aquidneck carries Newport at its southern tip, and the East Passage runs deep beneath the Claiborne Pell Bridge where the Navy's carriers once swung at anchor. Newport itself gives the bay its two faces: the Gilded Age mansions above the Cliff Walk, and the sailing town below that defended the Cup from 1930 to 1983. On the chart, the passages carve deep engraved channels between island layers, with Providence at the head of it all.
Contours are laser-cut sheet by sheet, stacked by hand, engraved, and set behind acrylic glass in a solid Baltic birch frame in Dark or Light.
Bay sailors argue passages the way other people argue routes home. The whole argument is on this chart.
The engraving runs from Providence down both shores through Bristol and Wickford, around Conanicut and its lighthouse at Beavertail, to Newport and the open sound. Offshore lies Block Island.
- 24.5 × 31 in
- Solid Baltic birch frame in Dark or Light
- Acrylic glass front, ready to hang
- Free next-business-day shipping on orders placed by 2 PM EST
- 14-day returns
Live from the water