Key words / invoking salty
midwest, Few of us ever see a marked navigation channel in our entire lives
I stongly suspect that there’s not a…
“I stongly suspect that there’s not a (logical) person in the entire midwest…”
enough said 
Right and left not the same as…
Port and Starboard are not wholly synonymous with left and right. The port side of the boat is the left side when facing the bow, the starboard is the right side when facing the bow. It does not change according to the orientation of a person on the boat.(Just as river left and river right are not wholly synonymous with left and right).
Do
Do you drive your boat looking backwards?
So, …
… are you telling me that it is actually important for a paddler to know this? If a friend is trying to find something in one of your boat’s hatches and needs help, do you tell him to look next to the water bottle on the starboard side? When going down a rapid, someone might yell out “go to the right of the rock”, but no one says “come through with the rock off your port side.”
Gimme a break.
your probably correct GBG …
– Last Updated: Jan-21-12 3:12 AM EST –
....... about few using or even understanding port and starboard meaning .
I use it as common speech when in a power boat operating on the bay though . Example "traffic crossing ahead showing port side lights" . We need to (must) monitor the light colors we see moving all about us to determine the direction other traffic is moving ... it's very dark out there and those lights confirm we are looking at port side , starboard side crossings , head on approach or following a vessel .
Red right return always works for every place I've been in the bay region ... especially valuable when in unknown waters .
Port and Starboard are just the way we learned it and we use those terms in common speake .
river right & river left
– Last Updated: Jan-20-12 1:12 PM EST –
Yes, it is important in moving water to be specific about river right and/or river left. When running or scouting a river sometimes one is facing upstream, sometimes downstream.
There are many things many people choose not to know. Many are happy with only general non-specific vocabularies. However, there is a use/purpose for specific terms.
Port and starboard are boat/vessel specific. Left and right are not.
rowing etc…
– Last Updated: Jan-21-12 4:00 AM EST –
When rowing, one is often facing the stern of the boat.
Yes when in busy navigation areas
First, as you say above you don’t paddle where there is a lot of boat traffic. So with all due respect your opinion on the necessity of this is not relevant for someone who paddles where this is an issue.
As to words that get used - on evening paddles with newer paddlers on our local rivers I usually tell folks to stay between the channel markers and the shore nearest to that marker. It’s not fancy but it works.
But if you are in some of the areas we paddle in Maine, you often don’t have that kind of visual fix. The channel markers are for working boats that will be coming in on auto-pilot - and fast - at day’s end to the myriad of smaller harbors. The markers are often well out from an easily identified land mass and there will be a shoreline in better than half the directions you can look. Using visual clues like staying between the markers and the nearest land mass can put someone right in the middle of the channel.
So you need something directional that both keeps you pod going the same way and keeps people out of the way of motor boats. This is where port and starboard get more important. If you need to put out a message on the VHF radio that your group is going to cross a busy channel, you HAVE to use the correct terms for other marine craft to know where you are going. If you are trying to monitor traffic levels to tell when it is safe to cross, or where there may be traffic that you want to avoid, again you have to be using the same terms as the big boats.
Port and starboard absolutely do matter in some situations, it just appears those are not the ones in which you paddle.
Left Handed People
Drink Port With their left hands
Blood River Kentucky Lake??
When headed east from Irvin Cobb, down the Blood River arm of the lake towards the Tennessee River, the Red buoys are on the starboard/right/south side of the channel, and the green buoys are on the port, left, north side of the Blood River embayment. Exactly backwards of the red/right/returning rule used most places. Don’t know why, when going towards the Tennessee River you are definitely headed downstream on the Blood River…
Anybody know why? Is it a TVA thing?
oh, knowing how to stay in the marked navigation channel during the MO340 race is a definite advantage.
Joe
Orientation is part of a larger system
As above, you need to be aware that the red right thing is exactly opposite of correct if you are entering a harbor from what is essentially marked as its exit to the next one up in the system in Maine. You probably have a similar situation around you.
Harbors exist both as individual entities and as a part of a larger network along a stretch of coastline. In an area of broad, wide open harbors the effect of that on channel buoys is not so obvious. But it is very visible in areas like the coast of Maine, with smaller harbors close together and tucked into small pockets behind islands. So you really see the “in” side of the harbor (relative to the larger system) and the “out” side. On one of those sides it’ll be green right returning.
You also have to realize that this is more confusing in a paddle boat, where you are low in the water and tend to see at most a couple of markers at a time, versus a motor boat where the operator is higher up and has a quite long sight line. Those folks can see the larger pattern much more easily.
FWIW, it was not easy for me to get an answer on this one. We had long since sussed out that the harbors around where we vacation had an in and an out, but weren’t sure of why. When I did finally press for an answer from someone, it was someone who sailed. The overall network was so obvious to him that it took me a couple of rounds before he realized that was what we didn’t know.
Clarification perhaps?
– Last Updated: Jan-21-12 1:32 PM EST –
Well, the poster I originally replied to made a blanket statement about it being necessary to take a boating class if one is not familiar with these terms. I simply said the terms are not relevant in most situations. In response to you, I say that the simple fact that I don't live where there's major shipping doesn't have any bearing on what I said to that person. The fact remains that thousands of very active boaters will spend their entire lives in small boats and never say or hear the words "port" and "starboard", and that sure doesn't make anyone of them unqualified to point it out.
In any case, I'm curious about two things. First, I'm wondering how keeping your group together requires the use of these words. You are talking to them face to face, right? Even in the Navy the commander gives orders to turn the ship "left" or "right" when adjusting course, though I understand that they do use "port" and "starboard" for describing the orientation of some other object or ship relative to the vessel they are on. Can you give an example of what you would tell someone in your group that actually requires the use of "port" and "starboard" when telling them where to go? After all, when operating a car, bicycle or airplane you can describe turning left and right, and point out other objects as being to the right or left of the machine you are driving, so why not do so when with your fellow paddlers?
Second, you say "If you need to put out a message on the VHF radio that your group is going to cross a busy channel, you HAVE to use the correct terms for other marine craft to know where you are going." The key point of my question refers to telling them "where you are going." How does describing your physical location on the channel, and your direction of travel across the channel, require the use of "port" and "starboard"? Shouldn't you provide your location along the channel, and tell them in which direction you will be crossing (such as going north or south across a channel that's aligned east-west)? I could see if your were speaking directly to the captain of a particular ship when doing so, and planning to let the ship pass close alongside, but I'm only addressing what you actually said.
My main point is that for the huge majority of us, who avoid paddling into the path of other boats, and when operating a small motorboat ourselves know what to do when coming near another based on relative orientations/headings/closure rate, knowing left and right already get the job done. I paddle the backwaters of the Mississippi and need to cross the main channel fairly often, where on a weekend there can sometimes be hundreds of boats per hour going by, most of them going 40 to 50 mph. When the pleasure boaters aren't numerous, the barges are still there. To cross the channel, I use the same method as that used by a farmer who's walking to and from his mailbox on the other side of the road. It can require waiting as long as ten minutes for a break in traffic, but I'm not thinking about port and starboard. If the poster I originally replied to is correct, no one should even let their kids cross the street until they're in high school and have had a driver's education class.
As I said…
– Last Updated: Jan-21-12 1:25 PM EST –
There are areas where visual fixes just plain aren't going to work because of distances and unclear shorelines. The only way that can be absolutely proven is if you paddle in some of the area I am talking about.
As to channel crossings, yes it is preferable to use compass headings and indications of a path related to a land mass - in addition to other information. But it's just plain courtesy as well as prudent to have the basic terminology. I suspect too that there is a difference in the education about boating between pleasure boaters along many inland waterways and captains of larger commercial vessels along most ocean coastline areas.
This is one where it is agree to disagree.
Makes no difference
– Last Updated: Jan-21-12 2:38 PM EST –
I row a lot, not that it matters, because this should be common sense to anyone. When rowing, I face the stern of the boat, but it is STILL the stern, and therefore the left side of the boat is STILL the left side of the boat. Thus, if I'm in the middle of a big group of canoes and kayaks and they all make a left turn, I make a left turn too and stay right among them. This goes for pointing out things that are one side of the boat or the other as well. That never changes either. I fail to see why you would be confused by this. If you are a passenger in a car and turn around to get something from the back seat while the driver is making a left turn, do you find yourself believing that the car actually turned right? Do you need to specify that the turn was made "toward the driver's side" to describe which way the car actually went? Does the right door of your car become the left if you look at the car from the wrong side?
can you show me Celia …
– Last Updated: Jan-22-12 1:28 AM EST –
...... on one of these charts (NOAA) what you were saying about green being on right when returning inland .
I like to see it so I can understand why it would be that way .
http://www.charts.noaa.gov/Catalogs/atlantic_chartside.shtml
I can look at it if you tell me what chart # , and a brief discrip. of where to look on the chart . I tried looking at the linked one (13324) from the Maine coast but couldn't find unusual sided green or red markers , do you see what you were mentioning anywhere on there .
I found what you say confusing…
– Last Updated: Jan-21-12 5:53 PM EST –
And I bet anyone who has ever done more than move a paddle boat around would too.
I am accustomed to more than paddle craft - I had a junior certification in NYS when I was a teenager because it was the only way I could legally drive the cute little motor boat that my father built. So I had to take a course and learn port and starboard and all that stuff. We go sailing with friends and they are silly enough to give me the tiller or the wheel for stretches during the paddle, and I did a little passenger-racing in a Sunfish with a friend in high school.
Bottom line - port means the left side of the boat and starboard means right, always from a bow-facing orientation. So yes if someone says left and I am facing backwards, my first response is likely to be what direction do they mean - my left hand or port? That's if I even ask. If I figure that the person should know basic marine terminology I may just turn to port (which would be my my right hand).
It is fairly unclear reading the above which way you'd be turning. It wouldn't be any better on the water. If you say port or starboard, then I know for sure what direction you are talking about.
just as a side note …
… about the red right return thing . Hearing it by one who is rather new to boating and not yet well studied “may” plant a misnomer in thier mind … they may associate a “red” light as being on the right of a vessel also .
Look up the charts for…
– Last Updated: Jan-21-12 5:41 PM EST –
Friendship Harbor in Maine, Muscongus Bay. Or any of the small ones probably, but it should be very clear for this harbor.
I just tried linking to the NOAA charts above and only one worked, and it was going to be a PITA to figure out how to get to a useful magnification on that. We use charts from Blue Nav but I don't have that installed on this PC, and buy them in marine stores. I don't know if the NOAA charts are quite as detailed. If they don't include information like whether there are bells or lights on nav aids etc, I wouldn't trust them for much.
We have encountered it at spots around Bar Harbor as well but I can't tell you what marker numbers they were. It did make for an interesting moment when a coach wanted to do rescue practice right in the middle of a channel because they didn't realize red right wasn't going to work there. Happily a boat came thru just as I was ready to make a stink about it so disaster was averted.
For Friendship, the is an entrance point to the west coming in from the edges of Hatchett Cove, around the northwestern end of Friendship Long Island. There is another entrance to the east, around the other edge of Friendship Long Island and I think it is Garrison Island that forms the eastern boundary of that channel. It's a little round island anyway, look for a land bridge to Bradford Point that would be up at low tide.
Both channels are pretty narrow - not a place to be unsure of where you are when tired boat captains are coming in.
The channel markers extend a bit out for these two narrow points around islands, but the final markers at the narrowest spot show the green/red thing pretty well.
If there are rules saying boats have to come in one side and go out the other, we haven't seen anyone obeying them. So it's not just kayaks that may be going in an out side.
You find it unclear? Serously?
– Last Updated: Jan-21-12 6:33 PM EST –
You say
"It is fairly unclear reading the above which way you'd be turning."
The left side of the boat is the left side whether I am paddling facing the bow, or rowing facing the stern. That's why a left turn is always a left turn. It's defined by the boat's orientation in space, not by people on board. Seems pretty simple to me. How about the car example? Your car has a left side and a right side, but do you ever lose track of which is which? Do right turns become left turns the instant you glance in the rear-view mirror? I can't understand how or why you see boats in such a different way than cars.
You say you are sure others would be confused by this, but honestly, I've never been on the water with someone who couldn't decide which side of the boat was the left side, or who might confuse a left turn with a right turn any time they were facing some direction other than toward the bow.