Port, Starboard etc.

Like all sports you have to know the language, so here are the very basics to learn (and a few tricks by which the remember them) :

Table 101 of sailing vocabulary (there are many more these are just some of the more common ones that you should know to get started) :

Normal   language	Sailing language	Light colour
Left	Port	Red
Right	Starboard	Green
Front	Bow
Back	Stern
Tall metal pole-holds the sail up	Mast
Metal pole-holds bottom of the sail	Boom
The sail	Mainsail
Sail at front of boat	Jib
Steering wheel	Helm
Where you sit when outside	Cockpit
Stairway	Companionway
The place downstairs, inside	Cabin
Rope	Sheet
Turning thing	Winch
Handle to turn Turning thing	Winch Handle

People often get confused/forget between Port and Starboard, so a few tips :

• like driving a car, if you are holding the steering wheel the left side of the car is to you left and your side of the car the right i.e. the left and right.
  The same for a boat. The left/right sides of the boat are relative to a person looking to the front of the boat.

• From the table above we see that the left side of the boat is called the ‘Port’ and the right side the ‘Starboard’.

• The way I remember this is as follows:
  - the word LEFT is shorter then the word RIGHT
  - the word PORT is shorter than STARBOARD
  - the word RED (light) is shorter than GREEN (light)
  - therefore we can pair the short words i.e. LEFT with PORT and RED and this RIGHT with STARBOARD and GREEN

• So if you can’t remember if the Left, or a RED light, is ‘Port’ or ‘Starboard’ just remember that ‘Port’ is shorter than ‘Starboard’ and thus pairs with Left and Red, which is shorter than Right.

• If you can’t remember if Bow or Stern is the front or back, I just think of a when a person bows to someone, they bow forwards i.e. BOW = front of boat