Port Starboard facts
While investigating facts about Port Starboard, I found out little known, but curios details like:
Starboard means "steer"board, which is the side of the steering oar on the right side since most people are right-handed. Naturally in that case, the left-side will be where you dock with the "Port".
When filming the movie Titanic they only built the port side of the ship. Scenes showing the starboard side were flipped in post production. As a result of this everything on the starboard side of the ship, from lettering to the buttons on costumes, had to be backwards during filming.
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 8 of the best facts about Port Starboard I managed to collect.
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The 'Chinese Fire Drill' was coined when a British officer miscommunicated instructions to his Chines crew, resulting in them pulling water from the starboard side and immediately dumping it on the port side, completely bypassing the 'putting out the fire' step.
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The boat's width at the widest point from starboard to port side is called its beam.
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In the movie Titanic, when the helmsman turns port (left) after receiving the order of "hard a' starboard", it wasn't a mistake made by the hemlsman or the movie. The order was in reference to the tiller, not the direction of the boat.
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On a ship, port is on the left because that was the side you dock on and starboard is a mashup of two old english words that meant the steering side.
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There are currently two opposite standards for buoy colors: roughly half the world uses red for starboard and green for port, and vice versa
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The 'port' side of a ship was originally called the 'larboard', meaning loading side in Old English. It was changed by the Royal Navy in 1844 because of confusion between the larboard and starboard.
