I don't know if this is supposed to be sarcastic or just plain funny -- or actually for real -- but it was sent to me by one of my windsurfing pals at the coast. I relaize now it showed up on April 1st...

The United States Windsurfing Association (US Windsurfing)announced
today that the term "port" will become the direction of right of way
for all of its Nationally sanctioned races "because it's easier to yell
"PORT" instead of "starboard" " declared Nat Siddall, Executive
Director of US Windsurfing. He denied that there was any involvement
from Mistral or Neil Pryde in making this decision. "For years we have
been deluged with letters and emails from racers who want faster
warnings and quicker response times on the course. Two syllable
warnings take twice as long to announce and perceive so we are going
with the shorter term."
Defenders of retaining the "starboard" term maintain that certain
board manufacturers resent the "free advertising" that Starboard is
getting from sailors in their casual- or excited- references to that
right hand forward direction. KISS, or Keep It Starboard-Stupid,
alledges that even Neil Pryde- the company that will be making the new
Olympic board-is feeling the effects when naive sailors yell
"starboard" on the approach of their new race board.
Siddall, despite sailing a Mistral, maintains that the
organization's decision is influenced by our modern society and its
instant messaging mentality. He cites tests on the water that
demostrate that a sailor can tack off in 33% of the time when they hear
"port" as compared to hearing "starboard". Siddall continues" if it
takes only one third of the time to react to "port" and you can see
that it takes half as long to say "port", then it is obvious that right
of way on a race course can be maintained in less time than you can say
"Do a 720.""
Many proponents of the change to port rule are former British
sailors who welcome this left hand prominance to their sailing sport.
American sailors who have been testing this switch are comfortable with
its ease of use and think that it will go beyond the race course and
help define right of way issues in all sailing venues. Siddall agrees,
and is looking into other single syllable solutions to make windsurfing
more user friendly.