The most misunderstood directions on a boat or ship are port and starboard. Non-mariners often just equate them to left and right. But they are wrong.

There is no left or right side of a vessel, only port and starboard.
Why?

Imagine you are standing at the front (bow) of the vessel. You are facing the back (stern) of the vessel. You glance over your right shoulder and notice a big log in the water. You scream “Turn left.”

Whose left? Yours or the person at the back of the vessel steering?

In other words, your left is their right.

That’s why the port side of the vessel is the port side regardless of your orientation. Everybody agrees to call it that. Same for starboard.

The exact definition is this:

When facing the front of the boat, port is on your left side and starboard is on your right side.

But that’s too confusing. You just need to memorize port and starboard, and stick with it. The next time you get on a vessel, face forward, then pat the side of the boat on your left and say “nice port,” then do the same for the other side but say “nice starboard” :-)

You might someday help avoid a collision at sea.

Why call the two sides “port” and “starboard?” Who cares? If every mariner in the world agreed to use “bumper” and “thumper” it would be fine.

The derivation of port and starboard may have come from the fact that early Stick Steer Boats had “steering oars” on the right side of the boat (facing forward) instead of rudders.

This meant that when a boat was docked while in “port” it had to dock on the side opposite from the “Steerboard” to avoid damaging the steering oar.

All professions use words or phrases that have agreed upon meanings, often nonsensical to most of us.

The reason for such verbiage is to avoid misinterpreting what another person means during life threatening events.

Aboard most modern ships, it is not unusual to hear the captain tell the person at the helm to “come right 30 degrees” because the person steering the ship is always facing forward. But all other “directions” that deal with a side of the ship are almost always still said in terms of port or starboard, including reports from look outs.