What the terms mean
Facing the bow, port is the left-hand side of a vessel and starboard is the right. The terms are fixed to the boat itself, not to the person using them, so they mean the same thing to everyone aboard regardless of which way they happen to be looking.
Related terms follow the same logic. The bow is the front, the stern the back, and anything ahead of you is forward while anything behind is aft. A boat heeling to starboard is leaning to the right; a harbour entrance to port is on your left as you approach.
Why sailors avoid left and right
The reason is ambiguity. If the skipper at the helm shouts "fender on the left" to a crew member on the foredeck facing aft, the two people are looking in opposite directions and mean opposite sides of the boat. At close quarters in a marina, that confusion costs gelcoat.
Port and starboard remove the problem entirely. They are properties of the hull, in the same way that a car's driver's side does not swap when you walk round the front of it. Once the habit forms it stops feeling like jargon and starts feeling like the only sensible way to give an instruction.
The words themselves come from working sail. Before centreline rudders, boats were steered with a board over the right-hand side — the steer-board, or starboard — which meant they had to come alongside a quay on the other side, the port side.
How to remember which is which
Three memory aids cover most people. Port and left both have four letters. Port wine is red, and so is the port navigation light. And a boat that has left port has left the harbour, on its left-hand side.
Whichever you use, say the words out loud during your first days aboard rather than translating them in your head. Crew who consciously convert "port" into "left" every time are slower to react than crew who have simply learned the word, and speed matters when a line needs easing now rather than in three seconds.
Navigation lights at night
The colours are not arbitrary. Every vessel under way at night shows a red light on the port side, a green light on starboard, and a white light aft, each visible only through a defined arc.
That lets you read another vessel's heading in the dark. A green light means you are seeing her starboard side, so she is crossing from your left to right. Red and green together means she is pointing at you — the situation that needs your attention. Add the white stern light and you can work out which way she is going before you can see the boat at all.
Port tack, starboard tack and right of way
A sailing boat is on port tack when the wind comes over her port side, and starboard tack when it comes over the starboard side. In practice, look at the boom: if it is out to port, the wind is on the starboard side.
The collision regulations use this directly. When two sailing vessels have the wind on different sides, the one with the wind on the port side keeps clear — the rule usually shortened to "starboard has right of way". It is the single most quoted rule at sea, and knowing which tack you are on is what makes it usable.
Where you will use it
You will use these words constantly from your first hour aboard: berthing, sail handling, keeping a lookout and applying the collision regulations all depend on them. Competent Crew and Start Yachting both build the vocabulary in as you go.
Common questions
- Which side is port and which is starboard?
- Facing the bow, port is the left-hand side of the vessel and starboard is the right. The terms are fixed to the boat, so they do not change depending on which way a crew member happens to be facing.
- Why not just say left and right?
- Left and right depend on which way the speaker is looking. Port and starboard are fixed to the hull, so an instruction is unambiguous whether the person receiving it is at the helm facing forward or on the foredeck facing aft.
- How do I remember the difference?
- Port and left both have four letters. Port wine is red, and the port navigation light is red; starboard carries the green light. Sailors also say a boat has left port, meaning it has left the harbour on its left side.
- What colour are the navigation lights?
- Red on the port side, green on the starboard side, and a white light aft. At night this lets you work out roughly which way another vessel is heading: a green light means you are looking at her starboard side.
- Who has right of way, port or starboard tack?
- Under the collision regulations, when two sailing vessels have the wind on different sides, the one with the wind on the port side keeps clear. In short, starboard tack has right of way over port tack.