This is a reference guide for different terms relating to a Galleon in Sea of Thieves.
When referring to things close to the ship, like floating debris or swimming pirates, refer to them using the terms front, back, port, and starboard.
When referring to things far away from the ship, mainly other ships in the horizon, but also shipwrecks, islands, etc., refer to them using the cardinal directions on your compass.
This is intended for gameplay and is not entirely accurate to real life nautical terms. For instance, the hind mast is actually called a mizzenmast.
We use port and starboard instead of left and right with regards to the ship because it’s faster. “Left of us” is the same as “portside” because you’re saying us to refer to the ship.
You’re better served using two dedicated terms for those directions. That way, when someone says “to the left”, you can look to your left knowing that if they meant the ship’s left they’d have said “portside”.
In some situations, you might still use “left” and “right”, for instance if you say “turning left” this is fine. What else would you turn besides the ship?
See also Wikipedia’s Glossary of nautical terms and the Galleon page on the SoT wiki.