Learn Hardcore Russian: В порту стояла старая лодка, мокрая после ночного дождя. - In the port there was an old boat, wet after the night rain.

в порт (accusative) – movement into the port: “to the port”.
в порту (special locative form of the prepositional) – location inside the port: “in the port”.
в порте – grammatically possible, but for words like порт the form в порту is the normal one in modern Russian when you mean “in the port”. в порте sounds unusual or old‑fashioned here.

So в порту is used because the sentence describes where the boat was located, not where something is moving to.

Why use стояла (“was standing”) instead of just была (“was”)?

Russian often uses verbs of posture instead of the verb быть to describe the location of objects:

стоять – to stand (upright position, often used for things that “stand” somewhere: boats, houses, bottles)
лежать – to lie
сидеть – to sit

В порту стояла старая лодка literally: “In the port stood an old boat.”
It sounds much more natural than В порту была старая лодка. Using стояла gives a visual image (the boat is there, stationary, occupying space), not just existence.

What tense and aspect is стояла, and what nuance does it add?

стояла is:

past tense
feminine singular (agreeing with лодка)
imperfective aspect

Imperfective past here describes a state or background situation: the boat was in a standing/parked state in the port.
It’s like English “was standing” rather than a simple “stood” as a one‑time event.

Why is there a comma before мокрая?

мокрая после ночного дождя is a detached descriptive attribute (отделённое определение). It’s separated by a comma because it adds extra, non‑essential descriptive information about лодка:

В порту стояла старая лодка, мокрая после ночного дождя.
→ “There was an old boat in the port, (which was) wet after the night rain.”

If you removed мокрая после ночного дождя, the main sentence would still be complete: В порту стояла старая лодка.
The comma shows that this is an additional description, not part of the core identification of the boat.

What exactly is мокрая here – an adjective, a participle, or something else?

мокрая is a full‑form adjective:

feminine
singular
nominative
agreeing with лодка

It functions as a detached attribute of лодка: “a boat, (one that is) wet after the night rain.”

It is not a participle; the participle would be something like мокнувшая (having gotten wet), which is not used here.
Grammatically, лодка, мокрая после ночного дождя is similar to English “the boat, wet after the night rain” – an adjective phrase in apposition.

Could I say лодка была мокрой после ночного дождя? How is that different from лодка, мокрая после ночного дождя?

Yes, Лодка была мокрой после ночного дождя is correct, but it has a slightly different structure and nuance:

Лодка была мокрой после ночного дождя.
- мокрой – instrumental case (feminine singular), used in a predicate after быть.
- Focus: a simple statement of state: “The boat was wet after the night rain.”
Лодка, мокрая после ночного дождя, стояла в порту.
- мокрая – nominative, full adjective, detached attribute.
- Feels more descriptive, like painting a picture of the scene. It’s often used in literary or narrative style.

In the original sentence, the author chose the more descriptive, “painterly” structure.

Why is it ночного дождя and not ночной дождь?

Because of the preposition после:

после always takes the genitive case.

So:

masculine noun дождь (rain) → genitive singular дождя
adjective ночной (night / of the night) → genitive masculine singular ночного to agree with дождя

Therefore: после ночного дождя – “after the night rain”.
If you said после ночной дождь, it would be ungrammatical: ночной дождь is nominative, but после requires genitive.

How does старая лодка work grammatically?

лодка:

feminine noun
singular
nominative (subject of the sentence)

старая:

feminine
singular
nominative
adjective agreeing with лодка

The endings match:

лодк‑а (‑а is typical for feminine nominative singular)
стар‑ая (‑ая is the standard feminine nominative singular adjective ending)

So старая лодка = “an old boat” with full normal adjective‑noun agreement.

Could the word order be Старая лодка стояла в порту, мокрая после ночного дождя? Does that change the meaning?

Yes, that word order is also correct:

Старая лодка стояла в порту, мокрая после ночного дождя.

The basic meaning is the same, but the emphasis shifts:

В порту стояла старая лодка… – starts with в порту, so it sets the place as the main frame of reference: “In the port, there was an old boat…”
Старая лодка стояла в порту… – starts with старая лодка, so it foregrounds the boat itself.

Russian word order is relatively flexible; speakers use it to control what is presented as “background” and what is “new” or important information.

What is the difference between В порту стояла старая лодка and В порту была старая лодка?

Both are grammatically possible, but they sound different:

В порту стояла старая лодка.
- Natural, vivid, neutral style.
- стояла suggests a stable position, a visual scene.
В порту была старая лодка.
- Grammatically OK, but sounds more like an abstract statement of existence, or something you might contrast with something else.
- Often you’d expect a follow‑up: В порту была старая лодка, а новая уже ушла.

In everyday and literary description of a scene, стоять (and similar posture verbs) are generally preferred.

Is there any reason it’s после ночного дождя and not something like после ночи?

Yes, there is a nuance difference:

после ночного дождя – “after the night rain”: specifically refers to rain that fell at night and caused the boat to be wet.
после ночи – “after the night”: just after nighttime in general, without specifying that it rained.

The original sentence wants to explain why the boat is wet, so it mentions the rain, not just the night.