You’re standing on the deck of a ferry, the wind is whipping your hair into a mess, and someone shouts, "Dolphins off the port bow!" You instinctively look right. Or maybe you pause for a split second, trying to remember that "port" has four letters just like "left." By the time you’ve done the mental gymnastics, the dolphins are gone. It’s frustrating.
Why do sailors do this?
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It feels like an elitist secret club language designed specifically to confuse landlubbers. But honestly, port side and starboard side exist for a reason that’s actually a matter of life and death, even if it feels like trivia when you’re just trying to find the buffet on a cruise ship. If you use "left" and "right" on a boat, you’re asking for trouble.
The Steering Oar That Changed Everything
Standardization didn't happen because people liked fancy words. It happened because of how boats were actually built a thousand years ago. Before rudders were attached to the centerline of a ship (that vertical fin at the back), most boats were steered with a big rowing oar.
Since most people are right-handed, that steering oar was almost always placed on the right side of the stern.
The Vikings and early English sailors called this the steer-board. Over several centuries of linguistic drifting, steer-board became starboard. It’s a literal description of where the steering gear lived.
Now, imagine you’re trying to dock a massive wooden ship. If you have a giant, expensive steering oar hanging off the right side, you aren't going to smash that side against a stone pier. You’d snap the oar like a toothpick. Instead, you’d pull the ship up to the dock on its left side to protect the steering gear.
Because that left side was always the one facing the port, it became known as the "larboard" side.
Here’s where it gets messy. In the middle of a storm, with waves crashing and wind howling, "starboard" and "larboard" sound almost identical. If a captain yells an order and the crew hears the wrong word, people die. To fix this, the British Admiralty decreed in 1844 that "port" would officially replace "larboard."
It was a safety upgrade. Simple as that.
Why Left and Right Just Don't Work
Think about sitting in a car. Left is left, right is right. But a ship is a 360-degree environment where people are constantly moving, facing different directions, and performing tasks.
If I’m facing the back of the boat (the stern) and you’re facing the front (the bow), and I tell you to look to the "right," we are looking at opposite sides of the ocean. That’s a recipe for a collision. Port side and starboard side are fixed points of reference based on the vessel itself, not the person looking.
Port is always the left side when you are facing the bow. Starboard is always the right.
It doesn't matter if you're upside down, doing a handstand, or walking backward toward the galley; port is port. This universal orientation allows for precise communication in high-stress environments. Navy sailors, commercial fishermen, and recreational boaters all use this same "vessel-centric" geography to ensure they are talking about the same piece of hull.
The Color Code You See Every Night
If you’ve ever looked at a ship or an airplane at night, you’ve seen the glowing lights: one red, one green. This isn't for decoration. International maritime regulations (and aviation rules, which borrowed them) dictate a specific color scheme:
- Port is Red.
- Starboard is Green.
Why does this matter? Imagine you’re the captain of a container ship in the pitch-black middle of the Atlantic. You see a single green light in the distance moving across your path. Because you know green is starboard, you immediately know which way that ship is facing. You can tell if it's moving away from you, crossing your path, or if you’re on a collision course.
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It’s a visual shorthand that prevents disasters. Even the US Coast Guard’s Navigation Rules (colregs) rely entirely on these fixed definitions to determine "right of way." In most head-on situations, ships are supposed to pass "port to port," basically the maritime version of driving on the right side of the road.
Modern Tech and the Survival of Tradition
You’d think with GPS, AIS (Automatic Identification System), and high-tech radar, we’d move past 19th-century terminology. We haven't. If anything, the tech has solidified it.
Your digital charts and radar screens are oriented to these terms. Pilots in the cockpit of a Boeing 747 still use port and starboard. It’s the global language of navigation. Even in space travel, NASA uses these terms to orient astronauts within the International Space Station or inside a capsule.
But there’s a nuance people miss.
When you’re talking about "outboard" or "inboard," you’re talking about the direction relative to the center of the ship. You could be on the port side but moving "inboard" (toward the middle). It’s a grid system that works without a compass.
Common Mistakes and How to Actually Remember
The most common mistake is overthinking it. People try to remember it by which hand they write with, but that fails the moment you turn around.
The easiest way? The "Four Letter" Rule.
- Port has 4 letters.
- Left has 4 letters.
- Red (the port wine color) is a short word, like port.
If you remember that, you're ahead of 90% of the people on a cruise ship.
Another weird bit of trivia: Why do we "port" our helm? In the old days of sailing ships, the steering was done with a tiller (a handle attached to the rudder). To turn the ship to the right, you actually had to push the tiller to the left. This created a massive amount of confusion that lasted well into the era of the Titanic. In fact, "helm orders" were one of the most confusing parts of early 20th-century seafaring until they were finally standardized to "rudder orders," where "hard a-starboard" actually meant the ship would turn right.
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Real-World Stakes: The Collision of the Andrea Doria
History is full of moments where a misunderstanding of position led to tragedy. Take the 1956 collision between the SS Andrea Doria and the MS Stockholm. In heavy fog off the coast of Nantucket, both ships saw each other on radar. However, they misinterpreted their relative positions and the "rules of the road."
The Stockholm turned to starboard, which is the standard procedure. But the Andrea Doria turned to port, attempting to give the other ship more room. Because they weren't following the same predictable "port-to-port" passing logic, they crashed.
It’s a sobering reminder that these aren't just "salty" words for sailors to sound cool. They are the framework for global maritime safety. When everyone on the water agrees on where port is, fewer ships end up at the bottom of the ocean.
Your Actionable Seafaring Cheat Sheet
If you’re heading out on the water, don't just memorize the words. Internalize the orientation.
- Face the Front: Always orient yourself to the bow (the pointy end) before calling out a side.
- Look for the Lights: On any vessel at night, if you see a red light, you’re looking at their port side. If they are crossing your path from right to left, you are seeing their red "stop" light—meaning they likely have the right of way.
- Practice with "Aft": While you're at it, stop saying "back." The back is the stern. Moving toward the back is going aft.
- Check the Dock: Next time you see a ship docked, notice which side is against the pier. Historically, it’s the port side, though modern thrusters and rudders mean ships can dock on either side now. However, many ships still have their primary bunkering and loading doors on the port side as a nod to this tradition.
When you’re on your next whale-watching trip or boarding a sailboat, skip "the left." Use the right terms. Not to sound like an expert, but to ensure that when you say something, everyone on that boat—from the captain to the deckhand—knows exactly where you’re looking.
Next time someone yells about a "starboard" sighting, you won't be the one looking the wrong way while the moment passes you by.