It requires a process of learning, and that is intentional.
These are the most common reason of fatalities:
- Not wearing a lifejacket or PFD.
- Falling overboard.
- Capsizing, swamping, sinking, or running aground.
- Being involved in a collision.
- Operating a pleasure craft while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
The goal of the license should be helping these people, not experienced ones, who anyways have more advanced license, not just the basic ones.
You’re suggesting that people avoid using port and starboard on a boat because they should be focused on learning how to not fall overboard?
Terms like “port” and “starboard” are particularly important when someone falls overboard. The last thing you want to do is tell someone to grab the man overboard “on the right side” and have them go to the wrong side of the boat in a crucial moment. This is why these things exist. We have been sailing for hundreds of years and are very good at it.
Despite this, your entire argument is a bit ridiculous. It is not zero sum- port and starboard do not take up “brain space” that causes you to forget a life jacket. Boat training will help you ensure the safety of the passengers AND teach you “port” and “starboard”.
When I was doing my original boating license, again the practical part on water was about 20 minutes (starting / stopping and saving somebody from water)
I had much more road practice in my road driving license included, and there wasn't anything unnecessary taught there, I still use 90% of the things taught then when I am driving.
For example, consider spelling a word. The briefest approach is to say the names of letters. But these are similar, often differing only in one phoneme. E.g., P and B differentiating sounds are both bilabial plosives, differing only in whether they are voiced. But people for whom clarity is important will use something like the NATO Phonetic Alphabet. There, you'd say "papa" and "bravo". [1] It is much less brief, but much more clear.
Plus, that's not how brains work. Using a word for different things that change depending on context is like reusing a variable, with a compiler that randomizes global and local scope. In aviation they watch out for "Regression to prior learning", in the kitchen I watch out for putting something in the microwave instead of the fridge because the action is similar.
If you ask me which way is left, I'll have to stop and think not only about what left and right even mean, probably looking at my hand to see what makes the L shape, but I'll have to wonder who's left you're referring to, in addition to performing a mental rotation, an extremely error prone operation that I basically avoid at all costs, if my heading is not the same as the ships.
Any small about of simplification or added reliability there is a good thing.
Especially in historical context. Assuming the port and starboard were not mostly symmetric and had features specific to docking and steering, you're actually referring to something specific, not an abstract direction.
These conventions are designed for the 95%, not the 5% or 75% or whatever who can instantly tell which way is left relative to any given orientation without any effort.
A familiar experience... I have to catch myself when I start to throw the spoon into the bin and the teabag into the dishwasher!
A big part of the training material for boating license is about learning things that people are not using in practice, which makes less time / mental power to learn what is really important to survive and avoid crash (what's really important).