Didn’t you Brits have a period of confusion because your helm orders were based on tiller direction vs rudder direction?
I ain’t no scholard, but I can box the compass in quarter points given enough time and counting on my fingers. Or I once could…
3 Likes
It all got confusing when the quadrant was invented; after that it was fine.
Thankfully not quite old enough to have been examined in boxing the compass in quarter points.
The U.S. flag deep-sea foreign-going I’ve sailed on the 20+ years use port and stbd for helm commands. That also what most pilots use, both U.S. and foreign.
IFAIK using left and right for helm commands is no longer required.
“Listen, Greenhorn, that isn’t the floor, it’s the deck. Over there, that isn’t a wall, but a bulkhead. If you keep screwing up, I’m gonna throw you through that little round window over there!”
1 Like
I’m disappointed. This seemed like a perfect opportunity for y’all to dive into toilet humor.
I always caution greenhorns to belay the boomvang and take care not to let the baggywrinkles foul the peak halyard when scandalizing the spanker unless they want to kiss the gunner’s daughter.
4 Likes
Only US Jones Act seaman and officers use left and right helm commands anymore as far as I know. It’s definitely still taught at the US academies for helm commands. However, as you said, American pilots almost always use port and starboard for helm commands as that’s what the foreign crews respond to.
I am usually asked which we prefer and since we trade foreign, I tell them we go both ways. 
1 Like
That’s very inclusive of you.
You’d get a medal over here.
1 Like
I was under the impression (from things told to me a long time ago) that it had become a NATO country thing, or at least a US/UK-Commonwealth thing. But apparently not.
There are some nautical terms that I just gave up on trying to correct seamen on. Call the ramp jutting from the side of the boat a brow in Alaska and you’ll get a blank look. No use telling anyone the gangway is the spot you hang the accommodation ladder from. Few people have heard the term “accommodation ladder”. It’s a gangway to them, and why fight it?
Point to a bilge keel in shipyard and they’ll say, “Oh, you mean rolling chock”. Point to a roller chock and they say, “Oh, the chock with that roller in it that never spins?”
But the one that always fills me with despair is the difference between a door and a hatch. To be salty I suppose, the typical Alaskan mariner will usually call a vertical door between two compartments a hatch. Correct him, and he looks upon you as ignorant. Abbreviate it in writing as “WTD” and he thinks it is a social disease.
Not that any of it makes the least difference. The work gets done. Things go on.The Alaskan mariner works twice as hard as any other, and that makes up for a multitude of perceived sins.
(P.S. I know a guy who came to work here after four years in the Navy. A smart guy. He had no idea what a “skiff” was. To him, a small ship’s boat of any kind was a “rib”.
1 Like
Obviously, you have to restrict the whole port/starboard and left/right thing to English speaking countries.
Foreigners, sorry, countries that do not have English as their primary language, have their own set of commands which makes it much more interesting, especially in crisis situations.
Which is where pointing and shouting comes in useful.
Dunno, I’m a fan of Hazardous Skylarking (the term and the practice)
1 Like
Splice the mainbrace. That’s the perfect one!!!
2 Likes
Down the hatch!
It would just go over his head…
Ba dum tssss
I always found it humorous that although many nautical terms weren’t always prevalent in the oil patch, everyone seemed to know where Monkey Island was.
Wasn’t that where Seaman Staines lived?
Oh the eye rolls I give the millennial third mates when I give the instruction to ‘avast heaving’ and they chirp back over the radio ‘do you mean stop?’
4 Likes
Mini-survey
What do you all call the mooring device that is set into the side of the hull of a ship just above the waterline? The one that you can make a line off to…
Dutchman?
Shell bitt?
Pocket chock?
Hull chock?
I hear all of these thrown around for the same hull fitting.
Some even call it a panama chock 
…makes me cringe but I don’t bother correcting ships nomenclature anymore.
2 Likes