Port and starboard are nautical terms which refer to the left and right sides, respectively,
of a ship as perceived by a person on board facing the bow.
In lay terms, when standing on the bridge of a ship looking toward the bow, starboard
refers to the right side of the ship, port refers to the left side.
At night, the port side of a vessel is indicated with a red navigation light and the starboard
side with a green one.
These terms can also be applied to aircraft, particularly to airships in naval use, and
eventually for all forms of heavier-than-air aircraft, particularly for the waterborne
seaplane, existing in both floatplane and especially for flying boats of both civilian
and military types, with aircraft of all types even adopting similar navigation lights to
those of boats and ships.
The starboard side of most naval vessels the world over is designated the "senior" side.
The officers' gangway or sea ladder is shipped on this side and this side of the quarterdeck
is reserved for the captain.
The flag or pennant of the ship's captain or senior officer in command is generally
hoisted on the starboard yard.
Etymology Starboard
The origin of the term starboard comes from early boating practices.
Before ships had rudders on their centrelines, they were steered by use of a specialized
steering oar.
This oar was held by an oarsman located in the stern of the ship.
However, similar to now, there were many more right-handed sailors than left-handed sailors.
This meant that the steering oar used to be affixed to the right side of the ship.
The word starboard comes from Old English steorbord, literally meaning the side on which
the ship is steered, cognate with the Old Norse words stýri meaning "rudder" and borð
meaning etymologically "board", then the "side of a ship".
Port An early version of "port" is larboard, which
itself derives from Middle-English ladebord.
In Old English the word was bæcbord, of which cognates are used in other European languages,
for example as the German backbord and the French term bâbord.
The origin of lade has not been determined but some would connect it with the verb lade,
referring to the side on which cargo was loaded.
The term larboard, when shouted in the wind, was presumably too easy to confuse with starboard
and so the word port came to replace it.
Port is derived from the practice of sailors mooring ships on the left side at ports in
order to prevent the steering oar from being crushed.
Larboard continued to be used well into the 1850s by whalers, despite being long superseded
by "port" in the merchant vessel service at the time.
"Port" was not officially adopted by the Royal Navy until 1844.
Robert FitzRoy, captain of Darwin's HMS Beagle, is said to have taught his crew to use the
term port instead of larboard, thus propelling the use of the word into the Naval Services
vocabulary.
History Before modern standardization, quartermasters
were advised to follow the rotation of the bottom of the wheel.
Thus, when obeying a "hard a-starboard" command, the QM would turn the bottom of the wheel
to the right, or starboard.
This applied the left rudder and the ship turned to its left, or to port.
Steering with the bottom of the wheel was apparently an approved way to learn helming
more than a century ago.
The nautical reason for a "hard a-starboard" command to turn left seems related to the
tiller and not the rudder.
A tiller is pushed to the right, or starboard, to apply left rudder and turn the vessel to
the left.
Right-of-way for other vessels Vessels at sea do not actually have any "right-of-way"—they
may be, correctly, in the position of being the "stand-on vessel" or the "give-way" vessel.
Therefore, at no time should any vessel actually navigate its way into a collision, and the
regulations are clear that no one in command of a vessel may assume a "right-of-way" up
to a point of collision.
Consider two ships on courses that intersect.
The ordinary rule is that the ship on the left must 'give way'.
The stand-on vessel sees the green light on the starboard side of the ship on the left
i.e., 'give-way vessel'.
The 'give-way vessel' sees the red light on the port side of the 'stand-on vessel'.
If the courses are intersecting, the helmsman usually gives way to a red light by going
around the stern of the stand-on vessel.
There are other rules governing which is a stand-on vessel, such as the wind based rules
for sailing vessels, powered ships giving way to sailing ships, and all other ships
giving way to powered vessels that are constrained by their draft or restricted in their ability
to maneuver.
Therefore the green light does not mean an unqualified go, but rather it means proceed
with caution subject to other rules applying.
The earliest railway signals went redwhite for stopgo following this naval practice and
were only later changed to the more familiar redgreen.
The very simple application of red light and green light is to remember the rhyme "If to
starboard red appear, 'tis your duty to keep clear" meaning that if the helmsman sees a
red light on his starboard side he is the give-way vessel.
The sailing rule that dictates that a sailing vessel on starboard tack is the stand-on vessel
is as old as any other regulation.
Likewise, if on the same tack, a sailing vessel that is upwind of another is the give-way
vessel.
When ships still had rudders on the starboard of the vessel, the rudder can lift farther
out of the water on a starboard tack due to the boat being healed over in higher winds.
This caused the boat on a starboard tack to have less control than a vessel on port tack
and therefore the port tack vessel must give way.
Sidelights
Sidelights are lit on the port and starboard side on vessels at night to indicate starboard
bow with a green light, and port bow with a red light, each lit from right ahead to
22.5 degrees abaft the beam on its corresponding side.
In international waters, the lighting of vessel is standardized in §23 Part C COLREG.
Mnemonic devices Regarding directional navigation lights, "red,
right, returning" is a common mnemonic used by sailors to remember which side is which
and direction of movement when observing other craft on the water at night.
For example, if the sailor sees lights on the horizon with a red light on the observer's
right side, the observer knows the craft is moving toward him, not away.
The mnemonic refers to: red, right, returning.
There are a number of mnemonics that have been used day or night to remember which sides
are port and starboard: A ship that is sailing out to the ocean has
"left port".
The sailor left port with a red nose.
Port and left both contain four letters.
"Port wine is red, so is the port light."
"Port is not right for children" The phrase "Any red port left in the can?"
can be a useful reminder.
It breaks down as follows: The drink port is a fortified red wine—which
links the word "port" with the color red, used for navigational lights.
"Left" comes from the phrase and so port must be on the left.
The reference to "can" relates to the fact that port-hand buoys are "can"-shaped.
A variation on the above is "Two drops of red port left in the bottle."
Another variation: "Port is the red wine that is left in the glass."
The common abbreviation P.S.
can be viewed as port and starboard.
"Star light, star bright, starboard is to the right."
"There is no red port wine left".
Terms referring to the right side are longer words, while terms referring to the other
side are shorter words.
Starboard contains two letter "R"s, compared to only one in port; therefore, starboard
refers to the right side.
Red is the representative color for some major ideologies of the political Left, e.g. socialism
or communism; whereas green is the color of US cash and is often synonymous with wealth.
In countries that drive on the left side of the road: If someone is drinking Port, they
should be on the passenger side; the "star" of the boat, or person who is in control of
the boat, is on the driver's side.
Port and starboard are in alphabetical order, which can be associated in European languages
with reading from left to right.
So they are in the same order as reading text.
Left and right are in the same order.
Green has two E's, Starboard has two R's, so starboard, green right.
The word starboard comes from Old English 'steorbord' literally meaning the side on
which the ship is steered.
Thus, the word 'starboard' means "steering side", which came to mean the right side because
there are more right-handed people.
Another logical analogy could be that most sailors are right handed and sitting on the
port "left" side, with the tiller in the right hand, is more natural for a right hander,
and the ideal position to watch the lee shore for obstructions and depths of the water,
when coming into port.
With the "land" at "left" there are fewer stars that can be observed than at the right
where the sky extends all the way to the ocean's horizon, thus the right side is the "Starboard"
side.
To farther explain using this logic, the rules-of-the-road, at sea are that a sailboat on a starboard
tack has right-of-way over one on port tack.
Since most helmsman are sitting on the port side they have a clear view of traffic vs
looking past the sails and other obstructions while steering on a starboard tack.
"Port is short."
The word left has fewer letters than the word right, and is therefore "shorter."
Port is the left side, and this mnemonic device is making reference to the shorter word.
Buoys A port buoy is a lateral buoy used to guide
vessels through channels or close to shallow water.
The port buoy is one that a vessel must leave to port when passing upstream.
If in International Association of Lighthouse Authorities area A, the port buoys are red.
If in IALA area B then the "handedness" of buoyage is reversed, and a vessel leaves black
or green buoys to port.
Mnemonic devices for buoys in IALA area B: Best People On Earth = "Black Port on Entering"
RRR = Red Right Returning Use in aviation
As aerodynamically controllable, powered aircraft of both lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air
forms evolved, the nautical practice of using "port" and "starboard" for aircraft began
to be considered for aeronautical use - following the first successful seaplane flight in late
March of 1910, and the adoption of airships by naval forces, the term began to become
mainstream, with their full adoption occurring with the success of flying boat waterborne
aircraft early in the 20th century.
See also Bow
Navigation light Stern
References
Further reading Herreshoff, Halsey, The Sailor’s Handbook,
Little Brown and Company Jobson, Gary Sailing Fundamentals, Simon & Schuster
Maloney, Elbert S., Chapman Piloting: Seamanship & Small Boat Handling, Hearst Marine Books,
New York Rousmaniere, John The Annapolis Book of Seamanship,
Simon & Schuster Seidman, David The Complete Sailor, International
Marine External links
The origins of 'port' and 'starboard' at the UK National Maritime Museum website