TRAVERSE, in navigation, implies a compound course, or an assemblage of various courses, lying at different angles with the meridian. Thus fig. 6. Plate CCLXXVI. exhibits the traverses formed by a ship, when making an oblique progression against the direction of the wind, as explained in the article TACKING.
The true course and distance resulting from this diversity of courses is discovered by collecting the difference of latitude and departure of each course, and reducing the whole into one departure and one difference of latitude, according to the known rules of trigonometry. This reduction will immediately ascertain the base and perpendicular; or, in other words, will give the difference of latitude and departure to discover the course and distance. See NAVIGATION.