When Starboard

Was Port

A couple of years ago in °IM”, Captain Brett Hilder \>ld how the Burns Philp ship Malabar” was wrecked off idney in 1931, due to the v-to-then British marine habit * giving a course to the steers \an opposite to where you anted to go. (It was a hang >er from the days when sailing \ips were steered by a tiller flick was pushed port if you anted to go starboard). Mr. arold Wickham, of Swansea, adds another incident of the me sort that was told to him t another BP skipper, now ng dead. Says Mr. Wickham: “The skipper had just brought s ship out of Yule Island, set s course for Port Moresby id handed over to his Chief fficer, prior to going down to eakfast. As he was sitting at s meal, he happened to glance it of one of the starboard port )les, and was amazed to see e mainland of Papua where Shad certainly no right to be. e galloped up to the bridge, id was just in time to swing e ship clear of the reef at the ytrance of the harbour he had st left. Then he went bald \aded for the Chief. *“But the latter quoted the ttirse he had been given, and e skipper was compelled to \ree that the Chief had obeyed wtructions. But, he said to e afterwards, ‘You'd have ought the silly B would we queried them as soon as I saw that it meant completely versing direction.’ ” \(According to Mr. Wickham, }ien that Chief Officer got his ‘st command, he piled it on feef.)