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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?”

#301

Post by Lio »

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.

An interesting thing to note is how this affects the control sticks on a car.

Generally the indicators will be operated with the hand that's furthest from the centre so that you can change gear in a manual car and turn the indicators on at the same time.

Australia, Japan, New Zealand amongst others all operate their indicators with the right hand. Not in the UK though.

Even though we drive on the left our indicators swapped to match other EU[0] countries that drive on the right sometime in the 1980s.

I drive a manual car and you just get used to doing both with the same hand. All done via subconscious muscle memory.

In fact I never really gave it much though until going round a corner in an automatic hire car in Christchurch, New Zealand. Wipers scraping across a dry screen, my hand desperately hunting for the missing gear stick as other cars hooted at me...

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0. Let's just ignore elephant in the room for now.

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

#303

Post by blowski »

eloisant wrote: post #281
lostlogin wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is unlike for a doctor, where it's obvious which side is which: you can see the patient. This isn’t always true and it’s not always obvious. For example with imaging - axial slices of the patient through symmetrical structures. The brain, lower abdo, a single leg or arm etc, etc. There are conventions in image display for a reason - it is not obvious. For axial slices, as an observer, you are positioned as tho…

I don't know, when you're talking about "the right arm", it seems obvious that it's the patient's right arm and not the arm that you see on your right when you're looking at the patient. I don't think you need to go to medical school to understand that.

It’s obvious 99% of the time, but that 1% equates to a lot of fatal errors.

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

#304

Post by dsego »

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…

Afaik, this is not the case in all other languages to have specific nautical terms for sides. I asked a sailor friend for the terminology in our language and it's just left side and right side/flank, seems pretty self explanatory, by convention you are orienting forwards. Like any profession though, having specific terminology helps distinguish from the outside group and maintain impression of expertise.

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

#305

Post by gerad »

nostromo wrote: post #256
walthamstow wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some examples? I am English but I know nothing about the maritime world, so I likely know the words as slang/vernacular terms but not what they mean on a ship.

A toilet on a boat is called a head because it was historically placed at the front of the boat. You’ll still hear folks say “hit the head” referring to using the restroom.

And it was put at the front of the boat because that was downwind of everything else on a wind powered boat.

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

#306

Post by bartlettD »

smitty1e wrote: post #125

Retired USN Surface Warfare Officer here. The differentiation between rudder and engine is crucial. The Conning Officer, who gives orders to the helm at the direction of the Officer of the Deck, will call rudder orders as "left standard rudder" or "right full rudder". Engine orders will be given in terms of "all engines ahead 1/3", "back 1/3" or "port engine ahead 1/3, starboard engine back 1/3" (to put a clockwise t…

Best comment in this thread, a lot of folks seem to be stuck on the etymology rather than the very deliberate use of special keywords in collabrative working.

Sailing, Flight, Surgery; All of these require people to work together, in scenarios where a misinterpreted instruction can cost lives.

The Tenerife Airport Disaster, still the deadliest aviation accident was caused by bad communication procedures. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerife_airport_disaster#Comm...

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

#307

Post by drpixie »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #200
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.

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.

I was taught "Jack left port" and I know port (wine) is red.

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

#309

Post by chuddington »

eloisant wrote: post #281
lostlogin wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is unlike for a doctor, where it's obvious which side is which: you can see the patient. This isn’t always true and it’s not always obvious. For example with imaging - axial slices of the patient through symmetrical structures. The brain, lower abdo, a single leg or arm etc, etc. There are conventions in image display for a reason - it is not obvious. For axial slices, as an observer, you are positioned as tho…

I don't know, when you're talking about "the right arm", it seems obvious that it's the patient's right arm and not the arm that you see on your right when you're looking at the patient. I don't think you need to go to medical school to understand that.

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