How do you remember....

[Laurin]

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...which is Port and which is Starboard?

Rather to my surprise, SWMBO who is decidedly non-boaty always gets it right. Today I discovered the reason. The galley (Pots & Pans) is to Port and the Shower to Starboard.

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Be interesting on a different boat LW395's are t'other way around!
I am sort of ambidextrous and have a limited sense of left and right. Writing 'PORT' on the port side of the boom so you can see it on port tack helps!

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I once raced against a boat that had " Don't panic you're on Starboard" written on the correct side of the boom

 

[Scotty_Tradewind]

a recent non boaty guest was helped to remember port with a light slap on her left wrist at the same time as shouting 'PORT' at her. She broke into tears.... unbeknown, she had just had that wrist out of plaster after breaking it...... woops!

 

[Aeolus_IV]

Ditto for me .. as for mark shapes I simply remember that "Coke comes in Red Cans".

Jeff.

 

[Chris_Robb]

It s a bit like SWMBO driving on the continent. having mastered the French rules of the road, left and right is instructions become totally reversed.......

Hope I don't meet any of this merry bunch once they have been at the port to decide if they have to give way or not.... /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[LadyInBed]

Also useful is to write Port and Starboard on the sides of the boom - allows crew to easily tell which tack they are on.

 

[marklucas]

No it even goes back in history!

Before we had nice rudders in the middle of the boat (think about it, several hundred, perhaps a thousand years ago, the last thing you would do is put a hole in the watertight hull you'd just made) so boats had steering boards e.g. a board levered on the side of the boat.

Now 90% of us are right handed so we naturally put it on the right side of the boat - this is even cited in the Oxford Shorter Dictionary.

Coming into port - well clearly we want to keep our board away from the shore.

Hence the left side is the PORT side.

Even better, PORT, LEFT and CAN (as in on a port hand mark) are all the shortest words. RIGHT, STARBOARD and CONE are the longest. I believe starboard is a corruption of the term steering board.

There you go - easy to remember!

 

[geoffatstanpit]

I once crewed on a boat that had "HIT HIM" in big letters on the starboard side of the boom and "MISS HIM" on the port side.

 

[chriscallender]

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The galley (Pots & Pans) is to Port and the Shower to Starboard.

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Must remember this, since it would work on my boat too.... the pots and pans are on port, and the shi.... I mean heads is on starboard /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[alan_d]

Oh dear, my heads are to port and the galley is to starboard ... do I need a different boat?

I know! Port is where you go to have a pee and starboard is where the soup is heated.