Titanic Tragedy: "No your other left!"

[DrDoom]

Interesting tidbit if it is in fact true..wouldn't surprise me.

Confusion about steering orders was responsible for the Titanic sinking, according to a relative one of the ship's officers.

Novelist Louise Patten, granddaughter of Titanic's Second Officer Charles Lightoller, said an officer had steered into an iceberg instead of away.

The Belfast-built luxury liner sank in the Atlantic Ocean on her maiden voyage in April 1912 with the loss of 1,500 lives.

Ms Patten said the tragedy had occurred during a period when shipping communications were in transition from sail to steam.

Two different systems were in operation at the time, Rudder Orders (used for steam ships) and Tiller Orders (used for sailing ships).

Crucially, Ms Patten said, the two steering systems were the complete opposite of one another, so a command to turn 'hard a-starboard' meant turn the wheel right under one system and left under the other."

She said when the helmsman, who had been trained in sail, received the direction, he turned the vessel towards the iceberg with tragic results.

BBC News - Family's Titanic secret revealed

[Dayman]

Sometimes we have crew members who don't know the difference between starboard and port, so we say "the other starboard".