Club burgee etiquette

Boomshanka

Boomshanka

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Sorry if this is obvious / pendantic. I've got a small triangular flag (burgee?) to show my membership of the Etap owner's association. Questions are:

Is it a flag or a burgee (what's the difference)?

Should I fly/wear/raise it on the starboard or port spreader halyard?

Should I leave it up there all the time or only when under way, or same as the ensign?

Many thanks...
 
'Sorry if this is pendantic.'

It is matey. Do whatever makes you feel good. You will be drummed out of posh clubs for trangressing some age old tradition. Their loss nor yours.
 
It's a special flag called a burgee.
Right place is at the masthead, or, failing that (as on most modern boats with aerials etc at the masthead) at the starboard spreader. If you go abroad, and fly a national courtesy fleag, the latter will be at the starboard spreader and the burgee moves to the port spreader.
Mine stays up all season. It makes me look as though I cruise huge distances because after a few months it looks really tatty.
Dunno where these so-called posh clubs are that Teredo has been to, my own club and any others that I've visited have all been extremely friendly!
 
[ QUOTE ]
It is matey. Do whatever makes you feel good. You will be drummed out of posh clubs for trangressing some age old tradition. Their loss nor yours.

[/ QUOTE ]
There may not be laws about where you hang your burgee, but it is nice to follow tradition ...
 
I have a 'club' burgee that I would like to fly/wear at the masthead. Where can I get a mount/staff/pole/stick to hoist to the masthead to fly/wear said burgee? I have the appropriate halyard. I think?
 
[ QUOTE ]

Dunno where these so-called posh clubs are that Teredo has been to, my own club and any others that I've visited have all been extremely friendly!

[/ QUOTE ]

Chichester??


"There may not be laws about where you hang your burgee, but it is nice to follow tradition"
 
[ QUOTE ]
I'm going to hang mine on my VHF arial /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
<ul type="square"> [*]You do not "hang a burgee". You hang pheasants and other game but you fly a burgee and you wear an ensign. [*]Arial is a Windows font and Ariel is a washing powder. It is therefore safer to call the sticky-uppy thing that is connected to the radio an "antenna" if you can't remember how to spell aerial. [/list] /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif


Boomshanka, The RYA booklet on "Flag Etiquette and Visual Signals" http://www.rya.org.uk/Shop/Cultures/en-GB/c4.htm is a handy and inexpensive guide to the traditions and etiquette surrounding flags and much more.
 
To an extend following tradition is nice, but i remember reading an article a few years ago in a sailing magazine, and the chap writing the article had been approached by another boat owner and informed that that due to tradition or something or over, when he struck the burgee at sunset he should have waited for this other boat owner to lower his first because he was from a senior club (i.e. older). He didn't say it in a rude way, i think it was along the lines of: "I say old boy, couldn't help but notice..."

Even so, thats so outdated now and imho very snobbish.
 
Saw a boat last year with an inflatable sheep flown/worn from the mast.Dont know which etiquette would apply to that. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif
 
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
 
<ul type="square"> [*]You do not "hang a burgee". You hang pheasants and other game but you fly a burgee and you wear an ensign. [*]Arial is a Windows font and Ariel is a washing powder. It is therefore safer to call the sticky-uppy thing that is connected to the radio an "antenna" if you can't remember how to spell aerial. [/list]
/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
To an extend following tradition is nice, but i remember reading an article a few years ago in a sailing magazine, and the chap writing the article had been approached by another boat owner and informed that that due to tradition or something or over, when he struck the burgee at sunset he should have waited for this other boat owner to lower his first because he was from a senior club (i.e. older). He didn't say it in a rude way, i think it was along the lines of: "I say old boy, couldn't help but notice..."

Even so, thats so outdated now and imho very snobbish.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am ex RN and am proud of maritime tradition. If I am in port where there is a Naval presence I would follow thier lead for the timing of Colours and Sunset to hoist / strike the ensign unless of course I have already gone to the pub.
 
[ QUOTE ]

<ul type="square"> [*]You do not "hang a burgee". You hang pheasants and other game but you fly a burgee and you wear an ensign. [*]Arial is a Windows font and Ariel is a washing powder. It is therefore safer to call the sticky-uppy thing that is connected to the radio an "antenna" if you can't remember how to spell aerial. [/list] /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif



[/ QUOTE ]

Ouch. Never be able to show my face in Chi again!!! My excuse, I have a head cold and it is buggering my brain.

Not going to hang it now just going to stick it up your arse
/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
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.
 
There was a thread recently where, as an aside, the usefuleness of smileys was cited as a facilitator of tone and manner.
Vics seems remarkably badly misused as 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.

So here's another example of a misused smiley:
Vic is seriously pompous and up himself!
/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
(See what I did there? that wink means I didn't mean it /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif )
Or did I /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Or didn't I /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
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