Poll: Port/Starboard vs Left/Right

[ObiQuiet]

In a flight sim, players learn "flaps", "ailerons", "pitch" and "yaw".   In Naval Action, they could learn "Port", "Starboard", "Fore" and "Aft".

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Actually this brings good memories of bloops and mishaps of flight situations

 

I like the correct terms in the UI but don't mind about voice chat being left/right etc

[Niels Terkildsen]

Aren't we forgetting about larboard?

[ObiQuiet]

Yes, we are. "Port" was declared the replacement for "larboard" by the RN in 1844, though of course "port" was in use before that especially for steering commands.

So, I think "port" is good enough for us.

[maturin]

An option in the game menu, of course.

[Sella]

Wasn't larboard eventually "replaced" by port because it sounds to similar to starboard? There was one historical event that lead to that that currently escapes me.

[Red Jack Walker]

I would love that change...more immersion...and so easy to learn for everyone in the end .

[ObiQuiet]

Should be larboard and starboard.

 

Some more background:

 

 

 L. G. Carr Laughton (1928) THE WAY of a SHIP, The Mariner's Mirror, 14:2,

132-148, DOI: 10.1080/00253359.1928.10655462

 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00253359.1928.10655462

 

 

p.136:

 

"Mainwaring, who compiled his Seaman's Dictionary between

I 6 2 o and I 6 2 2, knows both ''larboard'' and '' port,'' and wrote

in what was clearly the period of transition. The origin of the

term "port" is difficult, and hardly belongs to this enquiry;

and it does not seem necessary to say more here than that, after

continuing in limited use for two centuries, for helm orders,

and as applied to the heeling of the ship or the topping of the

yards, it did not fully come into its own until I 844, when it

was promoted by Admiralty Order to be used for all purposes

'Vice "larboard" thereby abolished. For at least twenty years

before that date "larboard" had been dropping into disuse, so

that the order in fact did little more than confirm a change

which had already become almost complete. "