Thanks all for your input – which throws up another “why????”

Why is a carrier’s island always on the starboard side of the ship?

IIRC one good theory on this was the placement of the island on the starboard side was that the preffered for the wave off characterics of piston powerd aircraft favored a wave off too the left. So engine tourqe of the aircraft could have been a driving factor. Of course not all all aircraft engines spin the same way, don’t want to get into that debate. So most navies adopted a starboard placed island, and then this became the standard. This also influenced the landing pattern that would be off the left side of the ship, and the left turns the aircraft took while in pattern. The Japanese designed two fleet carriers with their islands on the port side. This was done so that several carriers steaming in close company coulnd have de-conflicted landing patterns.