On Mon, 2 Oct 1995, Jack Baker wrote:
> My understanding is that in the very early days of sail the steering oar had
> to be moved to the side, so that the helmsman could see past the house.
> Eventually they place a door (port) on the other side so that they did not
> break the steering oar when docking. Hence Port side and Starboard side(they
> did their steering by the stars). Since the guy at the helm could see better
> to the right (starboard) the made rules saying that you yeild to the other
> ship you could see. Right of way. England being a maritime nation brought
> its sea law to shore when they got enough carage traffic to need it. Other
> countries decided to put the driver on the left, but maintained the old sea
> law of yeilding to the right. Left of way ,would make more sence ,since that
> is the side we see first.
>
> Gaile Baker's Brother Jack
> (:-))
Okay, being a sailor, I can comment. The steering board (from whence came
'starboard') was on the right side of the ship, and the boat consequently
had to dock on the other side, being the port side (next to the port). This
was when the steering board was often a large panel mounted on the side, not
at the rear. "Right of way" refers to a vessel's right to maintain its
course (it's 'way'), over the other vessel, not to anything relative to
right and left. What this has to do with near side and off side, I don't know,
but it is fun, isn't it? :-)
Dave Simpson
'77 MGB off side of my garage
'92 Voyager never in port
'66 Robbin sailboat permanently in port
BTW, The ships would unload grain at a specific dock, which became known
as the "serial port', and would parallel park at the (you guessed it!)
"parallel port". Then they would all have a nice glass of port, and a
piece of Stilton cheese.
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