Courtesy flag halliard arrangement

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EdWingfield

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I need an arrangement whereby a fumble in attaching a flag won't cause the halliard to go flying away in the wind. I have a small block on the underside of the stb spreader and a cleat on a shroud plus suitable line.

How best to do it guys? Also a visual on Utube would be nice.
 
I have a short line about 150mm on the chain plate. On this is a similar pulley as on the spreader
My halliard is continuous with 2 loops about 400mm apart
When leaving home port the flag is attached & wrapped around the halliard & tied with a short cord.& left at deck level
As i arrive in foreign parts i flip the cord off unfurl the flag & hoist i do it like this as i sail single handed & do not want to tie it on in rough weather if possible
 
Barton makes two kinds of shorud cleats, one with two conventional horns, one with a horn and a ring. Fit the latter, make up a halyard in the form of a long continuous loop which goes through the ring (i.e. is trapped by it, as in the post above), and job done.
 
As you already have a shroud cleat, presumably without a ring, just tie a line around its bas forming a loop through which the halyard can be threaded. Just make the halyard long enough to make of to the cleat! (the kind of thing I get wrong)

Rob.
 
My method is to lower the loop or the flag to be replaced to well below the cleat and tie off the halyard above the flag or loop. It is then fairly simple to change flags and re hoist..
 
I've had continuous loops before, but I don't really like the bight of slack line you get between the top and bottom of the flag (and if the line's not slack, then the front edge of the flag is, which is even worse). As a halfway house, on Ariam I have a smallish lead fishing weight threaded onto the line just above the upper inglefield clip. This means that if it does escape (not happened yet) it won't run away up the mast due to the weight of cord on the other side of the block, and unless it's very windy (in which case it'll have to wait) I have a hope in hell of grappling it with a boathook.

The downhaul side is threaded through the hole in the base of the cleat so it can't get away.

Pete
 
EdWingfield said:
I need an arrangement whereby a fumble in attaching a flag won't cause the halliard to go flying away in the wind. I have a small block on the underside of the stb spreader and a cleat on a shroud plus suitable line.

How best to do it guys? Also a visual on Utube would be nice.
Click to expand...
I join the toggle and the loop in the halyard, with a length of bungee just slightly less than the toggle to loop distance on the flag. The halyard could still fly away if I fumble it (it's not led through a cleat or chainplate at the bottom) but at least I won't end up with one end up against the block on the spreader and a long length streaming down wind so it's recoverable without a trip up the mast.
 
davewarburton said:
I have a flag haliards with an ingelfield clip on each end. If you happen to let go when U clipping the weight of the clip stops the end fling away.
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I've always had inglefield clips, because I inherited a bag of flags which had them already fitted. However, on our previous boat, the weight of the clip wasn't enough to overcome the weight of the halyard on the other side of the block, and I did once lose the halyard aloft.

I got it down again with a contraption made of electrical conduit, with a wire loop around the halyard to guide it on its way up, and an intricate little wire contraption which would grab the clip (on about the tenth try) when it reached the top.

This experience (the halyard accelerating away up the mast due to the increasing weight imbalance) is why I have the fishing weights on Ariam's signal halyards.

Pete
 
davewarburton said:
I have a flag haliards with an ingelfield clip on each end. If you happen to let go when U clipping the weight of the clip stops the end fling away. The courtesy flag also has ingelfield clips on each end so they can just be clipped in.

View attachment 47796

View attachment 47795
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having received a nasty cut on the ear from an errant ingle field clip, I disagree with that. The real solution is not to let go of the ends. You learn to do it after a few times leaping about the deck with a boat hook making an idiot of yourself trying to retrieve a flying halyard. :-)
 
Slight drift, but still pertinent I think. Courtesy flag on Stbd spreader, house flags pennants or whatever on Port. - yes? That's certainly what everyone seemed to do in the western Med when we were there.
Now I'm back in UK and not flying a courtesy flag, I'm told I'm flying my house flags on the wrong spreader and they should be on the Stbd one.
Can this be correct? It means that if I pop across to Ireland say, I have to drop and swap my house flags before I can hoist my courtesy flag.
Doesn't seem sensible to me. Don't tell me you must fill all the senior positions in order.
 
Billjratt said:
Slight drift, but still pertinent I think. Courtesy flag on Stbd spreader, house flags pennants or whatever on Port. - yes? That's certainly what everyone seemed to do in the western Med when we were there.
Now I'm back in UK and not flying a courtesy flag, I'm told I'm flying my house flags on the wrong spreader and they should be on the Stbd one.
Can this be correct? It means that if I pop across to Ireland say, I have to drop and swap my house flags before I can hoist my courtesy flag.
Doesn't seem sensible to me. Don't tell me you must fill all the senior positions in order.
Click to expand...

In theory that's what you're supposed to do, yes. In fact, your club burgee ought to be at the masthead, but very few people bother with that nowadays.

It's a bit unnecessary for someone to come and complain that you're doing it wrong, though.

Pete
 
I must admit that all my flag halyards, p&s spreaders and masthead, are continuous lines threaded through the base of the cleat. I tried using inglefield clips, but it gets expensive, so I simply cowhitch a loop into the halyard to take the top toggle of the flag and then hitch the halyard onto the line below the flag.

Yes, to be correct the various flags and burgees have an order of seniority as do the positions from which they can be flown, so they should be moved as the positions become available. If you make up a pigstick so that the burgee can be flown at the mastyhead, it gets much easier!

Rob.
 
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