Lucas Hammond (b. 1985) is an American maritime cartographer and former deckhand who grew up between Galveston, Texas and the Azores, where his mother worked as a civilian weather observer near Lajes Field. He studied oceanography and GIS at the University of Washington and spent a decade mapping shoals and channels from Sitka to Sandy Hook, logging thousands of hours aboard small survey launches out of Portland, Maine. In 2016 he survived a North Atlantic wreck and recovery that reshaped his life and work. His essays have appeared in Orion, Outside, and The Common. He lives in Rockland, Maine, where he volunteers with the Coast Guard Auxiliary, teaches coastal navigation, and takes his mutt Bosun out in a battered red kayak whenever the tide and weather agree.
