101–110 of 636 posts
The only was I can remember which is port and starboard is by thinking about boarding an airplane. The steps/tunnel are always docked on the 'port' side, just as boats always dock on the port side. The cockpit/bow is always on your left when you board.
My shortcut: "port" and "left" have the same number of letters.
It's funny to me that some olaf 1000 years ago just called them what they were; the steering side and the docking side, and now we have to use the same words which don't make any sense to us. I vote we just call them the steering-side and the docking-side again.
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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.
Don't they have to swap the lights anyway if the ferry reverses direction? After all, the red/green indicators are primarily for showing which direction the ship is moving in.
If you got halfway through a crossing and they announced there's a problem at the destination (broken thruster, docks on fire, dragons, docks on fire because of dragons), you would have to turn the ship around 180º and go back to your origin with the same bow that you started the trip with so everyone could disembark. The only time you'd switch ship orientation mid-trip is if something broke such that one end of the ship was navigable and the other was not. At which point you'd either have to dock backward (maybe with a tug) or everyone would have to back off the ship.
It's interesting to compare how different professions handle the ambiguity in left/right. In the maritime world they went with an approach at one extreme, where they just use two completely separate words, "port" and "starboard." (Though that's far from the only case where there's a special word for something on a boat.) At the other extreme you have the medical profession where the first thing you learn in medical s…
Didn't know that! So how pervasive is this principal? Would it apply to a descriptive reference to a diagram in a book for example?
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Of course, but this article explains what each word means. Starboard => Means "steering side of the boat" (b/c the oar was on the right side due to sailors mostly being right handed) Port => The side that faces the port when docked
You can dock a boat anyway you like, or have been instructed to do so by the dockmaster.
“Vessels with bilateral symmetry have left and right halves which are mirror images of each other. One asymmetric feature is where access to a boat, ship, or aircraft is at the side, it is usually only on the port side (hence the name)”
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My shortcut: "port" and "left" have the same number of letters.
This is the same method I use. I always wondered why they didn't use the cardinal directions (north, east, south, west) or why they didn't use the hours of a clock face to indicate direction. With the clock face, you get even more precision where exactly something happened. Man overboard, 4 o'clock!
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P and S are really defined by the direction of travel or what you decide they are. They are just conventions. The Torpoint ferry in Plymouth (Devon, UK) is on chains, so front and back, bow and stern etc is moot. I think we can simply redefine that sort of ferry as a fish and avoid any snags. That strategy seems to work for astronomy when trying to wrangle planet/dwarf planet/lump of stuff n that. (EDIT: speling)
Oh great, now we will have flying ferrys.... or perhaps swimming planes! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgweA8tlh8Q
Back in the day, in England at least, otters were classified as fish too for the purpose of allowable nosh on a Friday for your discerning Catholic. Nowadays we munch on depleted cod stocks and chips. Yum!
How on earth that became a thing in a country where it is impossible to get around 70 miles away from the sea beggars belief. There are also rather a lot of rivers hereabouts but we don't generally munch on freshwater fish here either - WTF?
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My shortcut: "port" and "left" have the same number of letters.
This is the same method I use. I always wondered why they didn't use the cardinal directions (north, east, south, west) or why they didn't use the hours of a clock face to indicate direction. With the clock face, you get even more precision where exactly something happened. Man overboard, 4 o'clock!
It's interesting to compare how different professions handle the ambiguity in left/right. In the maritime world they went with an approach at one extreme, where they just use two completely separate words, "port" and "starboard." (Though that's far from the only case where there's a special word for something on a boat.) At the other extreme you have the medical profession where the first thing you learn in medical s…
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You aren't wrong. In that mistakes can be made. But if I ask you about your left hand, is that ambiguous? By your definition here, that is an ambiguous question. But, that just feels wrong. Edit: I'll note that it is amusing to compare to cars. It seems the etymology of the terms is literally "driver side".
It's not ambiguous because you have a directional reference built into the phrase and speaking directly to a singular person: "ask you about your left hand". It is certainly clear if one would say "left facing stern" or "left facing aft", but that's a mouthful when you can just shorten it (and the reference facing direction is not relevant). Bonus points if the shortened version can't be mistaken for another directio…
I am still on board with dedicated terms.