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Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

oceanservice.noaa.gov

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Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#11

Post by Someone »

zwieback wrote: post #2

"Driver" and "passenger" side for cars. Oh wait, doesn't work in England etc. I guess for ships there is no variation between countries? Starboard is presumably where the wheel was so everyone must have left it on the right side?

> Starboard is presumably where the wheel was

Not the wheel, but (as this article also says) the steering oar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steering_oar:

“The steering oar or steering board is an over-sized oar or board, to control the direction of a ship or other watercraft prior to the invention of the rudder.“

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#13

Post by binarymax »

taeric wrote: post #6

This explanation feels kind of awkward. My left hand does not depend on my orientation, so I am unclear why the "left side" of a boat would. I get why there are better terms to use when talking about others. At least, I think I do. But it feels like there is more history to these terms than just "needs to be fixed."

Because left and right are ambiguous - are you talking about MY left or the boat’s left? Having unambiguous names let’s us differentiate and avoid confusion.

It might be hard to grok the need for this if you’ve never been in a tight spot while sailing or operating a watercraft with a crew - but having this distinction has probably saved thousands of bad incidents from happening.

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#14

Post by lesuorac »

taeric wrote: post #10
FoomFries wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if you face the back of the boat the sides reverse. It’s similar to stage left. When you can’t afford to be confused, one name is better than a conflicting argument between your left and the boats left.

But if I'm looking at you and speak of your left hand, I am not speaking of the hand to my left. Literally nobody does that. At least not on purpose.

Do you own a car? Commonly when speaking with a mechanic they'll ask questions like Driver's side or Passenger's side to get away from left/right.

People very often describe things with just _left_ or just _right_. They don't say things like when I'm sitting in the car the door to my left is hard to open. They just say the left door is broken even when both them and the mechanic are facing the car head on.

By having people use an unambiguous vocabulary it makes up for people not thinking about how their statements will be interpreted. If the deckhands were genius's they're be charting the course not heaving rope.

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#15

Post by tomohelix »

java-man wrote: post #5

I wonder why more people are right-handed. What could be a biological basis for that?

Probably the same reason why most biomolecules are chiral, i.e. having left and right side.

Last time I read about this, I think some physicist said something about the rotation of elementary particles and radiation stuff that are way over my head.

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#16

Post by taeric »

binarymax wrote: post #13
taeric wrote: post #6

This explanation feels kind of awkward. My left hand does not depend on my orientation, so I am unclear why the "left side" of a boat would. I get why there are better terms to use when talking about others. At least, I think I do. But it feels like there is more history to these terms than just "needs to be fixed."

Because left and right are ambiguous - are you talking about MY left or the boat’s left? Having unambiguous names let’s us differentiate and avoid confusion. It might be hard to grok the need for this if you’ve never been in a tight spot while sailing or operating a watercraft with a crew - but having this distinction has probably saved thousands of bad incidents from happening.

I can see it as advantageous. With the major caveat that it is only advantageous to folks that have been taught it. Not shockingly, a large portion of the passengers on a boat are going to be confused if told to go to the starboard windows to see the whales that are beside the boat. How will you explain it? I'm going to guess that you will probably say "right." :D. (Note that this isn't hypothetical. I take a ferry fairly often, and surprisingly few of us know starboard from port.)

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#17

Post by gamblor956 »

zwieback wrote: post #2

"Driver" and "passenger" side for cars. Oh wait, doesn't work in England etc. I guess for ships there is no variation between countries? Starboard is presumably where the wheel was so everyone must have left it on the right side?

It still works just as well in England...

Things that are driver-side in the U.S. are also driver-side in England, because the layout is designed around the position of the driver.

"Starboard" comes from Old English "steor bord", which meant "steering side of the boat" back in the days when a steering oar was used to steer the boat. Most sailors were right-handed so this was almost always the right side. It was easier to dock with the other side of the boat facing the port, so the left side became "larboard" and then simply "port." English is the international nautical language owing to its centuries of dominance of the oceans, followed by the U.S. dominance of global politics, so the English terms became the standard nautical terms. (Note: technically the international nautical language is "Seaspeak," which is a special dialect of English created specifically for nautical use.)

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#18

Post by jiayo »

zwieback wrote: post #2

"Driver" and "passenger" side for cars. Oh wait, doesn't work in England etc. I guess for ships there is no variation between countries? Starboard is presumably where the wheel was so everyone must have left it on the right side?

Having grown up in a large transit-oriented city, I learned to drive as a grownup. I really struggled with the concept of reversing. "Turn the wheel left!" "You just turn the wheel the way you want the _back_ of the car to go." "No, the other left!"

At this point I was still limited to driving in empty 1000 space parking lots and was getting frustrated. One day I realized, I could ask my driving companion-turned-instructor "hey when you say left and right, can you just say passenger-side or driver-side?" After a few iterations at this, it all clicked. My new-driver brain could do absolute positioning consistently with minimal effort, instead of having to calculate relative positioning each time and getting frazzled.

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#19

Post by 1123581321 »

drewrv wrote: post #8

I understand that the terms are mostly unambiguous, but I always wonder how these get defined in edge cases. For example ferries, at least where I live, alternate the direction of travel as they go back and forth. There isn't a fixed "bow" or "stern" from which to define port and starboard.

Those ferries should be switching the direction the crew faces (perhaps in a different structure on the other end of the boat) and turning on the appropriate lights so port and starboard are lit correctly. They should have two sets of colored lights to handle travel in both directions.

Re: Why do ships use “port” and “starboard” instead of “left” and “right?”

#20

Post by phire »

drewrv wrote: post #8

I understand that the terms are mostly unambiguous, but I always wonder how these get defined in edge cases. For example ferries, at least where I live, alternate the direction of travel as they go back and forth. There isn't a fixed "bow" or "stern" from which to define port and starboard.

For bidirectional ferries, I assume they just pick a direction all the way back at design time and stick to it.

The direction might not matter, but consistency does.

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