Once they started using wheels, which was long before the damn Titanic, they stopped saying "a-starboard" for a tiller motion to the right to turn the bow to the left. Helm commands are always given in terms of desired change of direction of the bow!! Hard-a-port means "turn left" by throwing the wheel hard to port. Jerry's right that if they had thrown the engines astern they would have gotten some torque. I don't recall the engine commands, but it sure looked fishy to me at the moment.

Cheers,

A