Late Nite Thoughts

[classicman]

Originally Posted by glatt

Yeah, but port and starboard are based on the locations of the bow and stern. What if the bow and stern are not fixed in location, like with a double-ended ferry?

Which side is starboard?

Easy answer is on the right, but ???
I am familiar with the double ended ferries, but I do not know which is which. The terms port and starboard mean more than just the particular side of the boat, ferry or ship. The term also refers to the engines and other things on the vessel. They have to be designated one way or the other. Then again they may do it differently on these boats.

The other thing that comes into play is that the different sides of the vessel have different colored lights used to designate which way it is traveling and other important factors. I can see how this is easily overcome by having both colored lights on both sides of the ferry and changing them dependent upon which way its going.

I still believe that there is a designated port and starboard though.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by classicman

I still believe that there is a designated port and starboard though.

I agree that the crew working the boat need to be able to use a common set of terms to describe certain parts of it, and designated one side as port and one side as starboard would be an easy way of doing that. They could say that the pilot house side will always be port, and the other side will always be starboard, but that means that an outsider won't be able to look at the boat and tell you which is which.