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The traverse board is a tool formerly used in dead reckoning navigation to easily record the speeds and directions sailed during a watch. Even crew members who could not read or write could use the traverse board.
As the mathematician William Bourne remarked in 1571, “I have known within these 20 years that them that were ancient masters of shippes hathe derided and mocked them that have occupied their cards and plattes and also the observation of the Altitude of the Pole saying; that they care not for their sheepskinne for he could keepe a better account upon a board.”
Bourne’s ‘old salt’ is talking about a traverse board, a wooden board with a compass rose drawn on it linked by pegs and cords to a series of peg holes beneath it. It allowed a helmsman to keep a rough check of the time sailed on each rhumb[1] of the wind.