Club burgee etiquette

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A bamboo cane, about 1/2" in diameter or thereabouts and about 4 or 5' . . .

. . . You now have a burgee on a pole which will rotate freely and not tangle (irrevocably, anyway) no matter how tight the half hitches on the bamboo.

[/ QUOTE ] What a well thought out, well written, and well illustrated description. Many thanks for this - it gets my vote for PBO post of the month.

It was particularly useful to me because it has reminded me of the one I made for my Cadet 45 years ago, which was of an almost identical design, and shaken me out of this awful mindset of buying, rather than making, kit for Freestyle. For months I've trawled through several chandleries looking for a purpose-built alloy burgee support. I could have made a dozen in the time I've wasted looking for one to buy.
 
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. . . I can see no humour or friendliness in the irrelevant put-down.
It's one of the less endearing traits of this and other fora and probably why, from another thread again, most people give up after a couple of hundred posts.

[/ QUOTE ] Whilst I agree entirely that this lacks friendliness, I did find it quite funny.

The trouble with humour is that it is often open to misinterpretation. Some months ago, in a thread about the Fastnet race, I wrote "Call me a pompous git if you like . . ." Viewed in flat mode this was followed by a very interesting post from a newbie describing her experience as navigator on one of the participating boats.

I would have loved to here more from her, but she never recovered from the shock of being called, as she viewed it, a pompous git (because the inevitable reply to my post appeared immediately below hers).

Erm, on rereading the above, I ought to replace the "here" with "hear", but I wouldn't want to spoil anyone's fun. http://www.ybw.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
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Vics seems remarkably badly misused as I can see no humour or friendliness in the irrelevant put-down.

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Well I thought it was quite funny. If the point of the smiley is to indicate that something's meant to be tongue-in-cheek, even if some readers won't immediately see it, then I think it worked well in that instance. Until I saw the smiley, I was in two minds whether he was being serious or not; the smiley reassured me.

The fact you can't see the humour doesn't mean it isn't there. The smiley should alert you to the fact that you might be missing something.

Of course like any language, it can be misused, as in "You're a total pillock, you are. Arf arf! No offence mate! No but you are though. No offence!" /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
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Experience suggests:

A bamboo cane, about 1/2" in diameter or thereabouts and about 4 or 5' (feet) long or to suit your boat, but longer better than shorter as it can stand higher above mast that the VHF aerial. Sourced at any competent garden centre, etc. Cut or find cane with a leaf node at one end -the bulging bit - I think most cane is cut like this anyway but good to make sure. Whip this and epoxy over to strengthen end.

Then using stiff galvanised wire (offcut from same centre or farm/builders merchants, bend a small loop in one end of the wire, just big enough to take an 8 x 2" stainless screw. Come out from the eye by 1.5" and then bend the wire 90 degrees. (blowtorch and molegrips) Leaving enough wire to run the drop of the burgee plus 20%, and then make a large loop thats comfortably bigger than the bamboo cane, at 90 degrees to the wire drop but in the same plane as the top loop. The cane now fits through the bottom loop and up to the top loop, which has the crew plus washer fastened into the top of the cane. You now have a stiff wire "hoist" that freely spins around the cane. Attach the burgee to this, lashing tight to the top of the wire and pulling taught and lashing at the bottom.

You now have a burgee on a pole which will rotate freely and not tangle (irrevocably, anyway) no matter how tight the half hitches on the bamboo.

I've found this system to be quite stormproof. Just remember to take the thing down when you leave the boat or the burgee will turn into a bleached rag within a couple of months. Its so cheap that you can make several for each burgee, if you have a collection. The only slight drawback being the storage of them down below.

Burgee-pole.jpg


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If you give the top wire loop a long end, this can be lead along the top edge of the burgee & stitched to it, exactly as Dinghy burgees are set up. Thus your club burgee becomes a wind indicator as well. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
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I am told that the navy used to wear their ensigns 24 hours a day, until a clerk in the Admiralty realised that he could save money by ordering them to be lowered at night.
Strange how a cost cutting measure can become the basis of a ritual that is important to some.

[/ QUOTE ]

As far as I am aware that is rumour rather than fact. Never been able to trace any history to it.
 
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[ QUOTE ]
I am told that the navy used to wear their ensigns 24 hours a day, until a clerk in the Admiralty realised that he could save money by ordering them to be lowered at night.
Strange how a cost cutting measure can become the basis of a ritual that is important to some.

[/ QUOTE ]

As far as I am aware that is rumour rather than fact. Never been able to trace any history to it.

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Not the Royal Navy, but the Danish, Dutch, German, Belgian & French navy still do it.
Ensign is worn at sea, at all times. Colours only come down in port at sunset.
 
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Even so, thats I would follow their lead for the timing of Colours and Sunset to hoist strike the Ensign unless of course I have already gone to the pub.

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If you strike the ensign matey, you'll be in the 'Rattle' and find yourself with at least 14 days Number 9's or worse !!

/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
I know of one club where boats only fly the club burgee when the "owners" are on board. It makes it easier to check for those who wish to have someones elses property (sometimes called thiefs).
 
Great idea but have a couple of caveats: (I keep them 'ere in the pocket, y'know)

I originally used 6mm galvanised fencing wire and it proved difficult to bend, but this is a minor problem. I'll do this with the next one using thinner wire.

It might be difficult to store. I have all of mine rolled in a long shelf - and perhaps I couldn't do this if they all had to be stored flat, but again, this is a minor issue.

Cheers.
/forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
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It's one of the less endearing traits of this and other fora

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the nominative plural of "forum" is "Fori" not "Fora".

OK. Now who's being pedantic.. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

(I may have just blown my cred with Freestyle.)
 
[ QUOTE ]
I am told that the navy used to wear their ensigns 24 hours a day, until a clerk in the Admiralty realised that he could save money by ordering them to be lowered at night.
Strange how a cost cutting measure can become the basis of a ritual that is important to some.

[/ QUOTE ] The clerk's name was Samuel Pepys. After the restoration in 1660, Pepys . . .

. . . became Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board and deputy to Montagu who was Clerk of the Privy Seal. . . . Thereafter he rose rapidly in the Naval Service and became Secretary to the Admiralty in 1672. He was hard-working, often starting work at 4 a.m., diligent and acute but he never forgot the fact that he was a servant of the state with a duty to protect the inteterests of it and its citizens. Lord Brayebrooke, who produced the first edition of the Diaries in 1825, wrote: -

"From his papers still extant, we gather that he never lost sight of the public good: that he spared no pains to check the rapacity of contractors, by whom the naval stores were then supplied; that he studied order and economy in the dockyards, advocated the promotion of old-established officers in the Navy; and resisted to the utmost the infamous system of selling places, then most unblushingly practised. His zeal and industry, acquired for him the esteem of Duke of York [later James II], with whom as Lord High Admiral, he had almost daily intercourse."

By 1678 the Navy had been transformed into a sizeable and disciplined force, much of the credit for which was justly given to Pepys.

(From a post by Bill McCann.)
 
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I think the nominative plural of "forum" is "Fori" not "Fora".

OK. Now who's being pedantic..

(I may have just blown my cred with Freestyle.)

[/ QUOTE ] On the contrary, it might have increased - owing to the high esteem in which I hold true pedants - if you had got your nominative plural right.
 
[ QUOTE ]
plural of "forum" is "Fori" not "Fora".

[/ QUOTE ] According to the Concise OED the plural is forums when the meaning is "a meeting or medium for an exchange of views" (like 'ere) or "a court or tribunal", chiefly in N. America, but it is fora when the meaning is "a public square or marketplace used for judicial and other business in an ancient Roman city"
 
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Even so, thats I would follow their lead for the timing of Colours and Sunset to hoist strike the Ensign unless of course I have already gone to the pub.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you strike the ensign matey, you'll be in the 'Rattle' and find yourself with at least 14 days Number 9's or worse !!

/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Not quite sure what you are reffereing to as I was paraphrasing from the sailing associations (RNSA) own rules on etiquette which refer to 'striking the burgee at sunset with the ensign'.
 
Oops! Well it has been 30 years since my last Latin lesson, so the odd slip is bound to happen. Been revising my numbers by watching the flagellation scene in "The Passion of the Christ" and through a half followed dialog, thought I knew it all. Sorry.

Just like to finish with the only two bits of Latin I can still remember from schooldays:

Caesar adsum iam forte, Brutus aderat.
Caesar sic in omnibus, Brutus sic in at.

and;

Si villi, si ergo.
Fortibus es in ero.
Gnosis mare, Thebe trux.
Vatis enim? Causan dux!

/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
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