this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
782 points (98.9% liked)

Funny: Home of the Haha

5402 readers
1055 users here now

Welcome to /c/funny, a place for all your humorous and amusing content.

Looking for mods! Send an application to Stamets!

Our Rules:

  1. Keep it civil. We're all people here. Be respectful to one another.

  2. No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia or any other flavor of bigotry. I should not need to explain this one.

  3. Try not to repost anything posted within the past month. Beyond that, go for it. Not everyone is on every site all the time.


Other Communities:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Honestly, yeah. That's what I relied on as well and what was taught to me. Also what I then taught to the people under me. I have no other real way of understanding it. I know why we use port/starboard but I've never looked into why port/starboard are the words we've stuck with.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

That's easy. We use 'port' because that's the left side, and 'starboard' because that's the other side of the boat.

No, no. No need to thank me. I'm just one humble man trading information gleaned from a long life of learning.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

IIRC, it was because the tiller for the rudder (with which you steer) was on the right side. (Styrbord in Swedish = steer board) As to why you have port in English, I have no idea. It's babord in Swedish, from bakbord (back board) as when steering, the left side was behind you.

Edit: Apparently it's port because you'd dock with the left side to the port as otherwise you'd crush the rudder, which again was on the right.