Port and starboard vessel's starboard side by green and its port side by red. Aircraft are lit in the same way. Port and starboard Port and starboard are nautical and aeronautical terms of orientation that deal unambiguously with the structure of vessels and aircraft. Their structures are largely bilaterally symmetrical, meaning they have mirror-image left and right halves if divided long-ways down the middle. One asymmetric feature is that on aircraft and ships where access is at the side, this access is usually only provided on the port side. To understand which is which, when a person is facing the bow on a
SS Avila Star either wore or carried a lifejacket plus a red marker light to attach to it. On the evening of 5 July the started following "Avila". At 00:36 on 6 July by Berlin Time, east of São Miguel in the Azores, the submarine hit "Avila"s starboard side with two G7e torpedoes, one of which detonated in her boiler room. The order was given to abandon ship. The ship's engines and main generator were disabled, but her emergency dynamo was started which restored electric light. "Avila Star" carried eight lifeboats: the odd-numbered ones on her starboard side and the even-numbered ones on