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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?”

#211

Post by the_cramer »

geocrasher wrote: post #202

Fun and easy mnemonic: Port = LEFT (4 letters in each word, same vowel/consonant placement) Port = Red as in Port Wine Therefore, navigation lights: Red = Port = Left If you remember that, then starboard is just "not port"

Back when i had sailing lessons, the skipper told us this story about the sailors coming home to harbour after weeks of sailing the oceans. They returned to their loved ones who they kept in their HEART which is RED and LEFT and since they were sailing towards the port, the RED lights are to be kept left from the ship.

It stuck.

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

#212

Post by ioseph »

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…

Some medical terms become hugely helpful when receiving a massage: "more medial, more lateral"

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

#213

Post by jahnu »

geocrasher wrote: post #202

Fun and easy mnemonic: Port = LEFT (4 letters in each word, same vowel/consonant placement) Port = Red as in Port Wine Therefore, navigation lights: Red = Port = Left If you remember that, then starboard is just "not port"

Worth mentioning that harbour signal lights are not the same the world over

https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/69030/why-does-t...

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

#214

Post by fargle »

riffraff wrote: post #203
bluefirebrand wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would probably throw my girlfriend off. She has some kind of right/left dyslexia. When she's driving and I'm giving directions I have to tell her "short turn" or "long turn". Long turn being left, longer because it's across a lane, right turns are shorter. But if someone told her that left is shorter than right for remembering purposes, it would probably mess her up more when following driving directions.

Holy crap my wife is the same, I have to tell her "turn my way" or "turn your way". It drives me insane as I always subconsciously interpret it as a form of lazyness, your framing of it as a form od dyslexia may finally allow me to be less bothered by it!

I was once driving along fine in the left lane and my female friend in the passenger seat suddenly yelled "TURN RIGHT HERE. RIGHT HERE! RIGHT HERE!!!"

So I cut across two lanes, avoided several oncoming motorists and made a hasty but decent emergency right turn into the parking lot.

She looked disgusted and said "Why did you do that? The place is RIGHT over there" and pointed to an area on the other side of the street on the left of where I'd been. "Why didn't you turn left RIGHT THERE WHEN I TOLD YOU TO!".

Ah, I loved that girl (platonicly). She hit me with a shoe one time, but I still feel bad for who she married.

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

#215

Post by eCa »

yafbum wrote: post #182
HideousKojima wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US doesn't really have a (consistent) grid system outside of cities, with the notable exception of Utah (due to planning efforts by the Mormon pioneers). And even in cities it can be a mess. For example Seattle grew from three different smaller areas that all planned their roads to be parallel to the coast. The problem is the coast isn't in a straight line so as they grew and combined into a single city it create…

? I'm not talking about the suburbs of Seattle, check out maps of rural areas of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Texas, Nebraska, or even the plains in the east of Washington state, most of the rural roads are running primarily North/South or East/West. Not that it's a grid system as in Manhattan, but it is following a grid pattern, and the names of the routes on signs and in spoken language are like "380 West" "215…

> East/West roads are numbered even, while North/South roads are numbered odd. None of that exists in Europe.

The E roads of Europe are generally numbered that way too[1], though exceptions exist.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_E-road_network#N...

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

#216

Post by m463 »

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.

probably not very politically correct anymore, but "You Write with your Right"

(also righty tighty, lefty loosey)

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

#217

Post by m463 »

riffraff wrote: post #203
bluefirebrand wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would probably throw my girlfriend off. She has some kind of right/left dyslexia. When she's driving and I'm giving directions I have to tell her "short turn" or "long turn". Long turn being left, longer because it's across a lane, right turns are shorter. But if someone told her that left is shorter than right for remembering purposes, it would probably mess her up more when following driving directions.

Holy crap my wife is the same, I have to tell her "turn my way" or "turn your way". It drives me insane as I always subconsciously interpret it as a form of lazyness, your framing of it as a form od dyslexia may finally allow me to be less bothered by it!

or playfully, "no, the OTHER right" :)

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

#218

Post by dmurray »

compiler-guy wrote: post #159
azepoi wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Which makes for some very confusing situations when the river is twisty. There are different places in New Orleans where the West Bank is south of you, west of you, and east of you.

That's exactly because they didn't follow the convention. If they called it the Right Bank, it would always be clear which side that was if you could identify the flow of the river.

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

#219

Post by jojobas »

acherion wrote: post #180
mr_toad wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But usually the wipers and indicator controls are reversed, which can be embarrassing.

And it's not always reversed! Australian-made and Japanese-made cars tend to have indicator on the right stalk, and wipers on the left. European cars tend to have indicators on the left stalk, and wipers on the right. But not always! Case in point: my wife and I live in Australia (have done so all our lives), and my wife had a 2008 Ford Focus, made in South Africa (a RHD country). Indicator stalk was on the left, wip…

Blinkers were always on the outside when most cars had manual transmissions, the opposite would be very inconvenient (and still is). Then somehow Britain didn't challenge the EU regulation that indicators must be on the left regardless of the driving side. Japanese and Korean cars still supply right-hand indicatored-cars to Japan, Australia and New Zealand, yet left-indicatored to the UK, go figure, European ones don't give a shit, so buyers of BMWs and MBs suffer (or enjoy?) being incompatible with the rest.

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

#220

Post by dmurray »

hinkley wrote: post #167
cromulent wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Are there any cabled ferries that go beyond line of sight?

Depends on the time of day and the weather.
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