While working in television in Hawaii we made a commercial for Matson Navigation's then-new roll-on/roll-off ships. I was assigned to film on board the ship from Oakland to Honolulu and Hilo.
The first time I went up to the bridge I was surprised to see above the bridge windows in front of the helm console two large signs. One of them was big red arrow that pointed left and said "LEFT" on it, and the other one was a big green arrow that pointed right and said "RIGHT" on it. All steering instructions, both from the captain and from the harbor pilots at both ends of the trip, were given as "left" and "right." (Apparently nobody in the commercial shipping world has read Chapman's
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Another nautical term screwup was one of the factors believed to have contributed to the Titanic's suffering enough damage when it hit the iceberg to sink the ship. Steering commands at that time, at least on the White Star Line, were given as "port your helm" and "starboard your helm." According to the books I've read about the Titanic, Britannic, and Olympic, this dated from sailing days when the tiller was put over to the opposite direction of the turn. So port your helm actually meant turn the ship to starboard.
Ships changed from tiller steering to wheel steering but for whatever reason the old commands remained. Tradition, I guess. Helmsmen knew what they meant but under the sudden stress of being confronted with the iceberg it is believed (or known) that the helmsman turned the wheel the correct way for the wording of the command which was the wrong way for the rudder. And actually moved the Titanic harder into the iceberg.
This had happened once before when the Olympic collided with a military ship in broad daylight. The two ships were running side by side at some event off the south coast of England and the helmsman turned the wheel the wrong way when the command was given to widen the distance between the two ships.