"To the starboard" or just "starboard"?

Toby Frost

Toby Frost

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Is it correct to say "A ship lay to the starboard of them" or "A ship lay starboard of them"? Unfortunately, I can't quite fit "A ship lay on the starboard side of them" into the text.

Thanks.
 
Yep, what the bunny said, no "the" there.

By the way, if this is for your C16th/C17th novel, don't forget that "port" is a relatively modern term for the left hand side of a ship. In previous centuries it was "larboard" if you want to give a olde-worlde flavour to the sailor-speak.
 
Toby Frost said:
Thanks chaps. It's actually the Royal Space Navy, so "starboard" works OK (although it probably doesn't make much sense in space, but then not a lot of stuff does).
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Actually starboard probably does make lots of sense in space, since the terms port and starboard are always relative to the vessel not the environment. This therefore makes absolute sense if the vessel has a logical top, bottom, left and right, as a ship like the Enterprise does, so starboard would always be to the right of the vessel when facing the bow. It probably makes less sense if the vessel has it's internal gravity supplied by either thrust or rotation. In both of those cases there would be no logical port or starboard.

Incidentally you might also say if the ship was ahead and to the right that it was 'off the starboard bow.'
 
Vertigo said:
Actually starboard probably does make lots of sense in space, since the terms port and starboard are always relative to the vessel not the environment. This therefore makes absolute sense if the vessel has a logical top, bottom, left and right, as a ship like the Enterprise does, so starboard would always be to the right of the vessel when facing the bow. It probably makes less sense if the vessel has it's internal gravity supplied by either thrust or rotation. In both of those cases there would be no logical port or starboard.

Incidentally you might also say if the ship was ahead and to the right that it was 'off the starboard bow.'
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Gets tricky in a B-wing starfighter though. ;)

ETA: why has Kirk transformed into Margaret Lanterman?


pH
 
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Vertigo said:
...if the vessel has it's internal gravity supplied by [...] rotation.
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Which is the situation in my WiPs (except for those ships that don't have internal gravity).

Unless they're on an observations deck (present only on some of the larger vessels), those on a rotating ship** cannot see the outside directly, but rely on feeds from external sensors. The (steady) images displayed to the crew have been translated to fit with the ship's notional frame of reference***, so there appears to be an "up", a "down", a "port" and "starboard". (Similarly, the ship's systems translate actions requested using that notional frame of reference to what will get the job done on the outside).

Apart from making descriptions easier to write, it's far easier on the crew. (Even on the observation decks, the display screens show the translated view of the outside.)


** - The whole ship rotates; there are no rotating sections attached to "fixed" sections.
*** - Based on an "up" based on the culture's version of galactic north.
 
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