captain_spalding said:

party_pants said:

captain_spalding said:

Well, if ‘port ‘ and ‘starboard’ were used in the film ‘The Odyssey’, then they’re anachronistic.

Those terms, especially ‘port’ were not in use until the 15th / 16th centuries’.
The ancient Greeks would have used the terms dežia (dexia): Meaning “right” or the right side (corresponding to starboard, or the side where the steering oar was), and aristera meaning “left” or the left side (corresponding to port).

Old English terms were Larboard (loading side) and Starboard (steering side, where the steering oar was mounted before rudders). The Royal navy did not officially change until the 1840s.

Even more weird:

The shift to turning a ship’s wheel in the exact direction you want the vessel to travel happened in the 1930s.

Before this change, helm orders and wheel movements followed the legacy of the physical tiller. Pushing a tiller to the right (starboard) moves the rudder to the left, which swings the ship’s bow to the left (port). Early ship wheels mimicked this reverse logic, meaning a helmsman had to turn the wheel the opposite way of the intended turn.

Before this change, orders like “hard-a-starboard” meant moving the tiller to starboard, which turned the ship to port. The wheel had to be turned counter-intuitive ways depending on the cable rigging.

In 1929, an international convention proposed standardizing direct helm orders. Countries then officially updated their steering rules. The United States changed the standard in 1935, and British ships officially adopted direct wheel steering in 1934.

Wonder if this change was brought about by the rise of the automobile and the turn the steering wheel the way you want the vehicle to move. Only once that became commonplace did the ship’s wheel seem counterintuitive?

just speculating…