port/starboard and left/right

[Rick H Kennerly]

Actually, I just cued up that scene and they want the ship to go to port
(left) and the order to the helmsman is "hard to starboard", yet he spins
the wheel to port (his left).  Thanks for clearing that up for us.  We've
commented on that "discrepancy" every time we've seen the movie.

We always put it down to the script editor being confused because they only
had half a ship to film with so in some scenes the writing (signs and the
logo on the crews hats) were printed in reversed and then the film was then
printed backward so that the writing came out correctly and Camron had both
a port and starboard side to his ship to play with.

|o|
|o| |o| Orders to the helmsman were traditionally given in terms of "helm",
|o| |o| that is to say, the position of the tiller rather than the rudder.
|o| |o| 'Hard a-starboard!' meant 'Put the tiller (helm) to starboard, so
|o| |o| that the ship may go to port!'.
|o|
|o| Which explains why in the movie Titanic the helmsman is
|o| spinning the wheel
|o| opposite to the modern convention when ordered "hard to port."
|o|
|o|