Difference between the French and the Dutch flags

Rum_Pirate

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A very good sailor once told this to me as we sailed past two yacht, one French and one Dutch, on his yacht,

The Dutch were better sailors than the French, or at least their flag designers were.

How is that I asked.

Well if you look at both flags and think of both of them after they have aged quite a bit, the ends will become damaged due to flogging in the breeze. Despite this even if a third or more of the flag is gone you will still be able to recognise the Dutch flag, unlike the French one, because with a third or gone it will be a Blue and White one or just a blue one. .

roynav.gif
 

Magaz97

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I dont understand the flags above, why are they different, am I missing something strikingly obvious?
 

fantasia7628

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A very good sailor once told this to me as we sailed past two yacht, one French and one Dutch, on his yacht,

The Dutch were better sailors than the French, or at least their flag designers were.

How is that I asked.

Well if you look at both flags and think of both of them after they have aged quite a bit, the ends will become damaged due to flogging in the breeze. Despite this even if a third or more of the flag is gone you will still be able to recognise the Dutch flag, unlike the French one, because with a third or gone it will be a Blue and White one or just a blue one. .

roynav.gif

The pennants above are confusing, if not just wrong for modern usage. Are they from a historic RN source?
 

Leighb

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but wrong way around.

:confused::confused:

German is horizontal, Belgian vertical. Just what he said, or implied anyway.

I have an odd way of remembering. There is a dialect of German "Plat-Deutsch" this means low or flat german. Thus German flag is flat. Works for me.

We see so many Dutch flags here I don't have trouble remembering them.
 

reginaldon

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My own mnemonic is Vive (vertical) La France and French speaking Belgium, whereas both Holland and Germany are horizontal.
 

snowleopard

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In a discussion about flags I explained to an American colleague 'France is to Holland as Belgium is to Germany'. For some reason I still haven't worked out she thought I was insulting our European neighbours.
 

Hayling

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The Germans invaded the Netherlands (Both Horizontal)
and down through Belgium into France (Both Vertical)

Not strictly historically accurate but good enough for my purposes.
 
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