Dancing At The Santa Ana Elks October 2009

Did You Know? - Did you know? - Starboard is the nautical term that refers to the right side of a vessel as perceived by a person on board a vessel and facing the bow (front). The equivalent for the left-hand side is port. The starboard side of a vessel is indicated with a green navigation light at night. The origin of the term comes from early boating practices. Before ships had rudders on their centerlines, they were steered by use of a specialized steering oar. This oar was held by an oarsman located in the stern (back) of the ship.

However, like most of the rest of society, there were many more right-handed sailors than left-handed sailors. This meant that the steering oar (which had been broadened to provide better control) used to be affixed to the right side of the ship. The word starboard comes from Old English starboard, literally meaning the side on which the ship is steered, descendant from the Old Norse words stýri meaning “rudder” (from the verb stýra, literally “being at the helm”, “having a hand in”) and borð meaning etymologically “board”, then the “side of a ship”.

Similarly, the term for the left side of the boat, port or larboard, is derived from the practice of sailors mooring on the left side (i.e., the larboard or loading side) as to prevent the steering boards from being crushed. Because the words larboard and starboard sounded too similar to be easily distinguished, larboard was changed to port.

• Terms referring to the right side are longer words ("starboard", "right", and "green"), while terms referring to the other side are shorter words ("port", "left", and "red").
• The English words "port" and "left" both have four letters in them. Port is left, so naturally, starboard is right.
• A ship that is out on the ocean has "left port".
• 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 (see below).
• "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 (only in International Association of Lighthouse Authorities region A).
• "Star light, star bright, starboard is to the right"