Scott Vernon wrote:
My wife watched Titanic the other night, I sat down for the 'crash'
scene. When they spotted the ice cube, they yelled 'hard to
starboard, but it looked to me like they turned the wheel to port.
Then the order 'hard to port' was given and , to me, they turned to
'the right'. Anybody else notice this? Should I quit drinking?

Yes, it was quite a little controversy and some people will still argue
about it.

It used to be common for the watch officer or pilot to give helm orders
in terms of a tiller... ie, to turn starboard, they'd order the helmsman
"put the helm to port." and vice versa. That way, it was up to the
helmsman to know how his helm worked, not the officer. A pilot could
step aboard any ship using a tiller, wheel, whipstaff, shin-cracker, or
whatever, and bring her safely in.

Somewhere around World War 1, people noticed that no ships had tillers
any more. So they changed the standard terms. the Royal Navy held on to
"reverse helm orders" until the early 1930s, most everybody else changed
about 10 ~ 15 years sooner.

So, when 2nd Officer Murdoch received the report of an iceberg right
ahead (and the odds are good he saw it himself about the same time), he
ordered the boatswain's mate of the watch (who survived BTW, a man named
Hitchins) to put the helm "hard a-starboard" in order to put the ship to
port. Then as the ship started swinging, Murdoch ordered the helm put
the other way in order to swing the stern out away from the iceberg.

They almost made it.

Regards
Doug King