The real reason to lower the ensign at night!
- Thread starter chubby
- Start date
Poey50
Well-known member
Three tuts (no more, no less) equally spaced. After one year eye-rolling is an optional extra.
scottie
Well-known member
Of course if it were a blue one you would have to lower it every time you left the boat!
KINGFISHER 8
Well-known member
Get yourself a Royal Standard and potter up and down just off the Royal Yacht Squadron ... that should wind the buggers up! - they'll be spilling their pink gins! ... :encouragement:
Frogmogman
Well-known member
I suspect that’s exactly the sort of eventuality for which they have all those little cannons
Jamesuk
Active member
Screw in a brass tube around the wood which has been varnished is one way to avoid it
KINGFISHER 8
Well-known member
"Fire as she bears number one, what what !!" ... :encouragement:
westhinder
Well-known member
Isn’t it odd that so many yachtsmen insist on emulating what is clearly a military tradition?
Merchant vessels of all nationalities fly their ensigns day and night, I have seen plenty of fishing vessels that have replaced the ensign with a painted steel plate welded in place.
As I do not think of my boat as military by the furthest stretch of the imagination, I have adopted the merchant way, I fly the ensign from the moment I arrive on board until the moment I leave the boat at the end of the weekend/holiday. (I’ll get my coat ?)
Merchant vessels of all nationalities fly their ensigns day and night, I have seen plenty of fishing vessels that have replaced the ensign with a painted steel plate welded in place.
As I do not think of my boat as military by the furthest stretch of the imagination, I have adopted the merchant way, I fly the ensign from the moment I arrive on board until the moment I leave the boat at the end of the weekend/holiday. (I’ll get my coat ?)
Iain C
Active member
Timely thread. To finish up my weekend on my new boat (including jammed furler, bleeding hand, mystery water leak, and raging hangover) I managed to snap my ensign staff off where is goes into the rail. Cue visit to wood turning chap during the week!
Hydrozoan
Well-known member
When mine swelled and got stuck, a Hallberg-Rassy owner told me that their boats are fitted with a metal-sleeved staff from new. I shaved mine until it was a loose fit - and have a thin cord with a handmade wooden toggle on the adjacent pushpit rail for security.
Saguday
Active member
IP’s come with all stainless steel staff, none of this wood malarkey.
Speaking of staff, that’s why one has kids for tasks like this, to run the ensign up in the morning and bring it in at night - for no other reason than one can
Speaking of staff, that’s why one has kids for tasks like this, to run the ensign up in the morning and bring it in at night - for no other reason than one can
DJE
Well-known member
Must be a Swedish thing then. Mine has the same although she isn't a Rassy.
Hydrozoan
Well-known member
I was reminded at the time of a Rolls-Royce joke about their ‘thinking of everything’ - and I should of course have referred more properly to a ferrule rather than to a metal sleeving.
dolabriform
Well-known member
IP’s come with all stainless steel staff, none of this wood malarkey.
Speaking of staff, that’s why one has kids for tasks like this, to run the ensign up in the morning and bring it in at night - for no other reason than one can
+ 1 :encouragement:
johnalison
Well-known member
I was reminded at the time of a Rolls-Royce joke about their ‘thinking of everything’ - and I should of course have referred more properly to a ferrule rather than to a metal sleeving.
My HR staff came with a metal ferrule, if you wish, in 2000. After one of various attempts by other yachtsmen to try to wreck my boat it has been replaced, on the last occasion in Eastbourne. My wife marched the miscreant off to the cash machine before he could lock out. Ferruled replacements are now widely available in chandlers.
Cheery
Well-known member
Our flag pole was on the main road opposite the RCT Depot in Aldershot. When on duty, the guard commander would ask someone to nip out and take the flag in at the appropriate time. Folded up and stuck under the desk until the following morning.
I do find this faux tradition quite amusing at times, as though some people are commanding a frigate. Still, if it keeps some people happy who am I to denigrate them.
Blue Sunray
Well-known member
How jolly nice for you, thank you for letting us know.
johnalison
Well-known member
Yes, but his ensign costs about a quarter of what ours do.
westhinder
Well-known member
And your reply to my observation was what exactly?
BrianH
Active member
My HR is too old to have the original staff - in fact it had none at all, I had to buy a new, non-metal-sleeved - sorry, ferruled - teak staff. It was a tight fit and anticipating the problem, I turned down the end enough to sleeve it, well prepared with epoxy, with a piece of thin-walled, s.s. tube I had lying around. It's a loose but comfortable fit in the socket on the pushpit and the ensign's lower halyard secures it to same pushpit rail that the socket is welded to.
At the same time I drilled a hole in the base much deeper than the length of the metal sleeve, into which I epoxied a length of s.s rod. This give a lot of strength to the staff well above the socket at that vulnerable point, for those inevitable stresses from lines, or even impacts, that would otherwise have the chance to break it.
When not aboard I strike the ensign by loosening off the lower halyard and removing staff and ensign entirely - none of your every sunset malarkey - at the same time taking in the Italian courtesy flag from the starboard spreader. Even with that, I seem to be alone in the marina, where faded, shredded ensigns are worn perpetually, let alone only during daylight hours. Anyway, no one else seems to know about that convention among my many varied European neighbours. As it is, I am anyway known as eccentric without such pointless etiquette adding to my dubious reputation.