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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?”

#351

Post by chongli »

walthamstow wrote: post #207
petersellers wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also pretty cool that a ton of sailing vocabulary has made its way into common English vernacular. I guess with the UK being the most powerful country in the world at one time (and projecting their power via their Navy) it's not too surprising.

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.

3 sheets to the wind — meaning drunk — comes from sailing. A sheet is a rope used to control a sail. Sheets that are “to the wind” are loose (rather than tied down) so a ship with 3 sheets to the wind is going to be completely out of control and at the mercy of the wind, wandering all over the sea like a drunk person!

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

#352

Post by denton-scratch »

dsego wrote: post #304
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.

> seems pretty self explanatory

On a big ship, like an aircraft carrier or cruiser, you can qite easily lose track of which direction is the prow (front). Many carrier crew rarely go up on deck. And if the ship happens to be sailing astern, left and right become ambiguous.

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

#353

Post by closewith »

jodrellblank wrote: post #345
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…

Then you have cars, where left/right would make perfect sense in all cars from the driver’s perspective but instead people use “nearside” and “offside” which are relative to the kerb while driving [1]. That means it’s relative to which side of the road the country drives on so if you drive a right-hand-drive UK car into mainland Europe, do nearside and offside swap on that car and you need to buy differently named re…

There's also the convention of inside and outside lanes on multilane roads.

In each the UK, Ireland, and the United States, the inside lane is the leftmost lane. However, due to driving on the opposite sides of the road, this means that while the inside lane in the US is closest to the central median, in the UK & Ireland, the inside lane is closet to the curb.

Source: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/inside-l...

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

#354

Post by almostarockstar »

walthamstow wrote: post #207
petersellers wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also pretty cool that a ton of sailing vocabulary has made its way into common English vernacular. I guess with the UK being the most powerful country in the world at one time (and projecting their power via their Navy) it's not too surprising.

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.

Leeway: The "lee" is the area downwind of a vessel. A lee-shore is a shoreline that the wind blows on to, as opposed to a windward shore that the wind blows off. To give leeway is to allow enough room for a vessel to be blown off course by the wind and avoid danger.

Rig (noun): The mast and supporting stays on a boat. (oil rigs, "big rig" come from this I think).

Rig (verb): To put the sails up and tie on the sheets and other lines that control sails. ("Let's rig this up." == "Let's set this up.")

Posh (my favourite, though I doubt it's actually true): Port Out Starboard Home. When travelling from England to India around the tip of Africa, it was favourable to have a cabin on the port side on the way to India and starboard on the way back as it would be in the shade most of the time and a little cooler in the sun, with a view of the land.

See also: Change tack / try a different tack, right the ship, stay the course, (to be) swamped, "At a rate of knots" (very fast), keep an even keel, keel over.

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

#355

Post by kwhitefoot »

pmontra wrote: post #347
narrator wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One interesting thing about middle ages technologies, like boats, is that the words in the different romance languages for things invented in this era are very different from each other. For example, in Spanish boat words like port and starboard are totally different[1]. Other examples of middle ages words that are very different: windmill = molino, wheelbarrow = carretilla. Words that refer to older things have more…

Molino is mulino in Italian. Ancient Greek and Latin had similar words starting with mol-. Given the importance of that technology I'm not surprised that the word didn't change much. English' mill is also close to the romance languages. [1] Port and starboard used to be "babordo" and "tribordo" in Italian but they were replaced by "sinistra" (the very word used to say "left") and "dritta". [1] https://en.wiktionary.o…

Babord is port in Norwegian. But starboard is styrbord which makes a lot of sense because the steering board, or oar, is on the steersman's right side.

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

#356

Post by russellbeattie »

narrator wrote: post #267
jjav wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Though that's far from the only case where there's a special word for something on a boat. Understatement of the week... pretty much everything on a boat has a different word for it. Often for practical reasons, sometimes purely traditional reasons. It is nice because it binds one to nautical tradition leading back centuries/millenia.

One interesting thing about middle ages technologies, like boats, is that the words in the different romance languages for things invented in this era are very different from each other. For example, in Spanish boat words like port and starboard are totally different[1]. Other examples of middle ages words that are very different: windmill = molino, wheelbarrow = carretilla. Words that refer to older things have more…

In Spain a computer is an ordenador. Spaniards hate anglicisms. Car is coche, not carro, email is correo electronico, zipper is cremallera. Lots of others.

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

#357

Post by eviks »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #292
MagicMoonlight wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You only know which side is port or starboard by figuring out your orientation compared to the ship and picking the left side of the ship. So it’s not actually achieving anything. You could just say left always refers to the ship’s left.

Port and starboard become instinctive very quickly, with no mental gymnastics needed. Left and right are confusing, there must be a reason all sailors are using those terms..

That reason is called tradition

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

#358

Post by smusamashah »

junon wrote: post #318
somenameforme wrote: post #316

There's kind of a fun brain teaser related to this. Imagine you're speaking to an entirely alien species in another dimension. And you're trying to describe "left" to them. It's impossible. I say it's a brain teaser only because this sounds highly improbable at first. Forwards and backwards can be described, and even up/down if we assume basic fundamental rules remain the same. Yet left and right? It seems impossible…

Not sure I understand. Directions are relative. I'd describe "left" how I describe every other direction.

Imagine they use word 'right' for 'left' but you don't know about it. How will you describe true left/right to them?

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

#359

Post by jimmySixDOF »

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…

I remember some time ago Cisco Nexus equipment that had different catalog definitions in the NX series (2000/5000/7000/9000) of the Air Intake definitions of where the "Front" was in a Front to Back fan setup. You literally had to order skus with conflicting descriptions if you wanted a consistent system.
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