Cannon counter
From YPPedia
The cannon counter on a ship shows the number of guns currently loaded. The cannons are loaded through the gunnery puzzle. The counter does not indicate whether all cannons have been loaded; instead, the commanding officer needs to rely on his or her knowledge of the total number of guns on the vessel he or she is in command of.
On a navy ship, when a player leaves his or her gunning station, the cannons he or she had loaded will unload and the counter will drop as a result, but on a regular player-owned vessel, the cannon counter will only lower when a shot is fired in a sea battle, or when it resets to zero after time in port.