Mys Terry wrote:


Sailboats tend to have the wheel in the center, and with a tiller, you
often switch from side to side. How come, if what you said above is
true? Haven't sailboats been around a lot longer than powerboats?


There are also many powerboats with wheels in the center, particularly
up on flying bridges where visibility thorugh most of the spectrum is
more easily achieved..
Almost nobody is building a new powerboat with the wheel to port these
days, while it was more common back in the 1950's and 1960's.

Sailboats are another matter, of course, because you have to account
for heeling. It would be fairly dumb to have the wheel to one extreme
or the other and be required to sit on the low side when heeled to port
or starboard. I don't pay much attention to sailboats, frankly,
but I did notice one motorsailor recently that had a slick steering
setup, with two wheels on the aft bulkhead of the main cabin. I assume
that when heeled to starboard, the helmsman can move to the port wheel,
and vice versa.




The reason your steering wheel is on the left side of the car when you
drive on the right side of the road is that the greatest hazard is the
oncoming traffic, headed straight toward you at perhaps 70-80 mph and
often only a few feet away.


I believe that is incorrect, Chuck. The basic reason for left hand
steering in countries where you drive on the right, and right hand
steering in countries where you drive on the left is because you can
see farther around curves and get a better view down cross streets of
intersections if you are out near the middle of the road.

Those would be additional good reasons for the configuration, but do
not invalidate the reason I advanced.



The explanation about "starboard" being derived from the Norse "steer
(ing) board" is correct, but at one time not all that long ago it *was*
common for pleasure craft to have port side stations. Perhaps this was
because people wanted their speedboat to be like a car? Who knows? The
trend in recent decades has definitely been to starboard helms, and it
does provide for safer operation.

And then there are all those Center Consoles...

Yes. Take a careful look at a center console. There is virtually always
unobstructed visibility to both port and starboard and very little
superstructure. Nobody is peering out of a cabin window, smeared with
rain, trying to keep a proper watch.

The preference for starboard helm is to facilitate the highest priority
watch- to starboard.

If the primary motivation was to honor the Norse tradition of the
rudder on the right hand side of the boat, one would have to wonder why
we have departed so far from the Norse traditions in other aspects of
the sport? Why no square sails and yardarms on sloops? Why don't we go
boating with 24 of our closest friends and 48 oars rather than a diesel
engine? About the only Norse traditions that seem to have survived is a
compulsion to
drink and celebrate to excess and deflower any and all virgins
encountered enroute. :-)