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

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

#141

Post by sacrosancty »

GuB-42 wrote: post #68
java-man wrote: post #5

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

There is an interesting game theory explanation. Having the opposite handedness of most other people (i.e. being left-handed) is an advantage in a fight. That's because righties are used to fight against other righties because most people are righties, lefties are also used to fight against other righties. It means that when a lefty fights a righty, the lefty is in a familiar situation while the righty is not, giving…

[dead]

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

#142

Post by azepoi »

antognini wrote: post #89

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…

In french theatre has specific words for left and right. Côté cour et Côté jardin. Courtside and garden side.

In geography left and right banks of a river are always in the direction of the flow

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

#143

Post by CalChris »

An additional starboard/port issue is right of way for sailboats. Suppose that you're going upwind and two close hauled boats are crossing. Who has right of way?

  When boats are on opposite tacks, a port-tack boat shall keep clear of a starboard-tack boat. Rule 10.

  A boat is on the tack, starboard or port, corresponding to her windward side. RRS Definitions.

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

#144

Post by batiudrami »

azepoi wrote: post #142
antognini wrote: post #89

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…

In french theatre has specific words for left and right. Côté cour et Côté jardin. Courtside and garden side. In geography left and right banks of a river are always in the direction of the flow

Rail uses “up” and “down main” where up is in the direction of the port or main terminus.

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

#145

Post by fargle »

zarzavat wrote: post #140
fargle wrote: post #135

When I was a kid in Minnesota we needed to learn port/starboard and the colors red/green. A trick that helped me remember is that "LEFT", "PORT", and "RED" are all the shorter words and "RIGHT", "STARBOARD", and "GREEN" are the longer words in the respective pairs. FWIW.

I was taught the mnemonic “There’s no red port left in the bottle”. Port wine is red.

Nice. Except I prefer Tawny Port, but I'll still remember it.

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

#146

Post by numbsafari »

jdietrich wrote: post #130
abhibeckert wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the other extreme you have the medical profession where the first thing you learn in medical school is that left/right always refer to the patient's perspective In (musical) theatre we do it the other way around. The we call it "stage left" and "stage right" or "SL and SR" since we use abbreviations everywhere in our notes. It's always from the "stage manager's perspective" which is traditionally (but not always…

In the automotive trade, a vehicle has a "driver's side" and "passenger side". This only partly solves the ambiguity, because of course some countries drive on the left.

This is how I refer to my dog’s legs/paws… eg, driver side rear would be his back left leg.

He’s a sport sedan, so it applies.

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

#147

Post by cromulent »

hinkley wrote: post #103
xg15 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

With double ended ferries you're going to dock bow first because that's the direction all the cars pointed. 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 dis…

Cable/chain ferries would not be able to turn around of course, the drivers would have to deal with it.

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

#148

Post by darkpatterns »

One domain where this concept of handling ambiguous left and right in natural language is generative image AI models like StableDiffusion. What I wouldn't give for a clear syntax to define what I mean when I say "left side" or "to the right" in a way that captures a character or object which may be rotated in any number of positions. Running 100 generations with the same prompt and different seeds demonstrates how hard this is to solve using words.

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

#149

Post by Infernal »

fargle wrote: post #135

When I was a kid in Minnesota we needed to learn port/starboard and the colors red/green. A trick that helped me remember is that "LEFT", "PORT", and "RED" are all the shorter words and "RIGHT", "STARBOARD", and "GREEN" are the longer words in the respective pairs. FWIW.

I learned “right red dead” in aviation - if you see the red light right of the green light, it means the other plane is headed for you!

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

#150

Post by Dylan16807 »

jdietrich wrote: post #130
abhibeckert wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the other extreme you have the medical profession where the first thing you learn in medical school is that left/right always refer to the patient's perspective In (musical) theatre we do it the other way around. The we call it "stage left" and "stage right" or "SL and SR" since we use abbreviations everywhere in our notes. It's always from the "stage manager's perspective" which is traditionally (but not always…

In the automotive trade, a vehicle has a "driver's side" and "passenger side". This only partly solves the ambiguity, because of course some countries drive on the left.

Remember, in the US the inside lane is on the left, and in the UK the inside lane is on the left.
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