@dangerousbeans that makes sense! some cursory searching backs up your story. also, at one point left was "larbord" which was nice because it rhymed with starboard but that caused problems because you have to yell it into the wind and they might hear the other one, so they changed it to "port". Remember "there is a little port left in the bottle" (also note, that port wine is red and so is the port side light)