Flag question

[Scott Rosen]

What's the right way to attach an Ensign to a flagstaff? I've been using metal clips, but I'd like to use something a little saltier--with rope and a cleat. ;)

What sayeth the flag experts?

[Ed Harrow]

Ummmm, well I'd start with a halyard ;)

Then I'd put a block, or a fitting atop the flag staff with a built-in sheave. The halyard ought to be "endless", with two suitable clips for attaching the ensign. Add a cleat and you'd be set. I suppose, if the staff were unusally long one might add a "hoop" to the lower clip so as to keep the luff of the flag close to the staff.

[NormMessinger]

How long is the staff? If short, 3' or so say, you could rig a dummy halyard in a lazy sheave with a little cleat near the base. I donno. Metal clips is what they sell.

What you doin' these days, Scott. We don't see you here abouts much.

[martin schulz]

Gaff rigged or Bermuda?

[Wooden Boat Fittings]

.
G'day Scott. Good to, um, see you.

It used to be the case that ensigns came with a toggle sewn to the bolt-rope at the top, with the lower end of the bolt-rope hanging free. Your halyard would have a small eye spliced into it through which you passed the toggle, and you then sheet-bent the other end of the bolt-rope to the other end of the halyard.

Nowadays Inglefield clips seem to be in pretty universal use. And why not? -- they work fine. (I picked up a new Eureka flag the other day, and it was pre-fitted with nylon clips top and bottom.) What's more, it's easier to join the two free ends of the halyard together with them when the flag isn't hoisted than it is by knotting them, which is what you'd do otherwise.

http://www.sewmanyflags.com/images/clip3.gif

The possible down-side is that that annoying tap-tap-tapping you can get with a halyard against the mast can be exacerbated if it's the clip in contact. But if you make off your halyard to a shroud-cleat, or use a length of shockcord to hold it away from the mast (as you probably do anyway,) there's no problem.

(Sanderling has a pair of extra-long-throat-length thumb cleats half-way out her spreaders to flick loose halyards into just to solve that very problem -- very handy things.)

Mike
.

[Hwyl]

Mike, Inglefield clips are called "Sister clips" here. My knowledge of sisterly relationships cannot give me a reason. I've had the name vociferously defended on a couple of cases.

I was waiting for Mike to give an answer, personally, I like it tied on to the Ensign staff. Lashed at the top, rolling hitch (or two) at the bottom.

[Ian McColgin]

On a sail boat the ensign is flown from a staff at the taffrail only when the boat is at anchor or moored to a dock. Most folk have the ensign permanently siezed to the the staff and either remove the staff or roll the flag and put a cover over it for sailing.

When under way, the flag is flow from just below the main gaff or the equivalent point on a marconi rigged boat.

One can have the flag hallyard through the gaff or a grommet in the leach. Since I have a fixed backstay, I compromised in a way that lets me fly the flag while under power, sails down. I've a hallyard along the backstay and a rotating arrangement to keep the flag from wrapping up in the course of some gybes and whatnot.

[Scott Rosen]

Let me be a little more specific.

My flagstaff is about 3.5 feet long and flies from the stern. My US National Ensign is 36" x 24". The flag stays on the staff. I remove the staff to strike the colors.

From what I've seen, flag ettiquite goes into such incredible detail on just about every aspect of flying a flag, that I figure there must be a preferred way to seize the flag to the staff--what type of knot to use, etc.

What I'll probably do unless someone comes up with a better idea is to seize the top of the flag--it only has grommets, not clips--to the top fo the staff and use a short length of 1/8" braid for the bottom of the flag, made fast to a small cleat on the base of the staff.

What would you use for the seizing?

[rbgarr]

If the picture of the fitting above is of an Inglefield or 'sister' clip, then I must be really out-of-date because I thought the name was Brummel hook!

I use tarred marline or heavy beeswaxed sail thread for seizing my flag on its flag staff. It depends on which I have available.

[Hwyl]

Originally posted by rbgarr:
If the picture of the fitting above is of an Inglefield or 'sister' clip, then I must be really out-of-date because I thought the name was Brummel hook!

I use tarred marline or heavy beeswaxed sail thread for seizing my flag on its flag staff. It depends on which I have available.David, you are right. West Marine (or at least Ronstan) calls them "sister". I argued about it with a sometimes West employee. I wonder if Brummel and Inglefield were sisters.

I'd go with the waxed sail thread.

[Wooden Boat Fittings]

,
Well, a search on "Brummel hook" shows that the term seems to be in comparatively common use as a synonym for Inglefeild clip, so I suppose we must accept it as such.

But a "sister-hook" it most definitely is not. Sister-hooks come in pairs (that's why they're sisters,) and this is what they look like --

http://www.woodenboatfittings.com.au/public/sisterhooks.jpg

which explains exactly how McMullen was almost dragged overboard by having one caught in his eye-socket when bound "Down Channel." (And also explains why they should always be properly moused.)

Given the situation, what you call a flagstaff is what we call here a jackstaff. (There's a drawing of one on our website.) I'm fussy, so we put a little sheave in under the truck and have a proper halyard and cleat, but I could understand why most people wouldn't bother. A couple of pieces of sail-twine would be fine. Indeed, I've seen them made (by other people, I hasten to add) with simply a hole through the truck, working as a dumb sheave -- it looks simply awful to me, but....)

Mike
.

[htom]

A pair of Turk's Heads. There are two ways to do this, one neat and one easy.

The easy way is to tie the Turk's Heads, and take the ends through the grommets and tie it off, or back into or under the Turk's Head before tightening it.

The neat way is to middle the line through the grommet and tie the Turk's Heads, leaving a slack forming a loop the right size to allow the flag to stand just off the staff.

[htom]

OK, there's a third, the way-too-much time on your hands way.

Tie a turk's head (loosely) in the middle of the line. Pass a toggle over one of the ends, and on the other, a loop that fits the toggle. Work the ends into the turk's head, forming a 3x TH. Adjust the length of the loop and the toggle part so that they fit nicely (the loop goes through the grommet in the flag to the toggle.) Tighten all. Repeat.

[Hwyl]

Mike, Scroll to the bottom of this page (http://www.apsltd.com/Tree/d3000/e474.asp)

I like using these people. Their catalogue uses the manufacturers name. All these clips at the bottom look like Inglefield to me.

Very useful, for attaching your Cunningham to a Highfield lever around your Charlie Noble (can't thik of any other proper names).

P.S. I really like the Turk's head solution #3 above.

[John B]

They're called sister clips here too. I have a pile of the bronze type that will take the 2 sheets into one so you can clip your sheets to the clew of your jib and subsequently get your teeth bashed out by em . Where I do use them, is to clip my peak halyard onto the gaff. I unclip to put the cover on.
And those sister hooks are called sister hooks here..

[rbgarr]

I wouldn't care to use the bronze big ones anywhere, but the small ones (3/4"?) are useful for spinnaker sheets, if you can find them. When they are spliced into the end of the sheets they can be pulled pretty easily around the shrouds and forestay without hanging up.

I'll stop highjacking now on brummel hooks, and say that I vote for the sheave on a truck with cleat at the base for any sizeable flag hanging off the stern.

When I was young, my father used to assign one of us children to flag duties which required raising and lowering all flags at the proper time each day and storing them in the rack. "Ensign Benson" was what he called the child who had the duty.

It was fun.

[ 04-13-2005, 06:08 PM: Message edited by: rbgarr ]

[Art Read]

T'aint "rocket science"... I've always seen, and used, a pair of bronze or brass eyehooks in the staff and a bit of nice, thin Italian marlin to lash through the flag gromets. Just roll the ensign around the staff when stowed for sea.

[Scott Rosen]

Originally posted by htom:
The neat way is to middle the line through the grommet and tie the Turk's Heads, leaving a slack forming a loop the right size to allow the flag to stand just off the staff.I'm having trouble visualizing this.

[htom]

Easier to do than describe.

Form a Turk's Head around a couple of fingers. There are two ends, they end up at the same side of the knot. The flag is going to be on the other side of the knot from the ends.

Beginning at one end, following the line along, you'll go around the hole in the center three times and come to the other end. Back up one and a half turns, on the opposite side of the knot from the ends, is the middle. Tug that (is it a blight? an eye?) loop at the middle of the line out a bit; that's where the grommet ends up. Tighten up the knot around the flagstaff, leaving that loop proud of the knot.

Grandpa W claimed that it would work loose eventually and he was right, but it took years.

There's a cheating way to tie it. Having tied the Turk's Head on your finger, tie a string smaller than the line to one of the ends. Feed that string&knot through the Turk's Head so that the string&knot emerge as part of the (now large) loop where the flag is to be. Untie the string, insert the flag grommet, tie the string to the line again, and feed it back. When the knot re-emerges, remove the string and tighten the knot.

! You could do the same with the toggle; that middle loop has possible loops on either side of the middle, use one for the toggle, the other for the loop, the middle itself being trapped in the Turk's Head.

A tiny bronze thimble worked into the loop (eye?) as the knot was tightened might give a longer life by protecting the line from wear.

[ 04-14-2005, 01:12 PM: Message edited by: htom ]

[Andrew S/Y Rocquette]

Originally posted by Ian McColgin:
On a sail boat the ensign is flown from a staff at the taffrail only when the boat is at anchor or moored to a dock.What I love about messing about in boats - one topic, many theories!

smile.gif

I would disagree with Ian's comment to a small degree:

Ian is, I believe, 100% correct in so much as that the quote above traditionally is the case, but it is in origin purely a practical thing as most yachts used to have overhanging booms leading to embarrassment when tacking or jibing with a flagstaff on the taffrail.

Go back 400 years, rather than 100, and flagstaffs were all the rage, as Drake took on the Spanish Armada…

But boat design changed, and forced a change in ensign-flying practice, which in time became codified as etiquette. Thus the ensign at the gaff for a gaffer under sail, and when Marconi rigs came into existence, thus the Marconi 2/3 of the way up the leach as the nearest equivalent to what was then deemed acceptable and was established through gaff-rigged yachts. Also, the early Marconi rigged yachts generally still had long booms, so they couldn’t fly from the flagstaff under sail.

Interestingly, Royal Navy Warships still strike the ensign on the counter and replace it with one on the mainmast as they leave the limits of a harbour - it's called a "sea ensign" and is the codified end-result of the sailing practices. Which, tangentially and sort of off-topic also has an ongoing practical function in preventing embarrassing incidents with landing helicopters…!

That said, traditions evolve, and I now 100% of the time in all circumstances fly Rocquette's (privileged blue) ensign from the taffrail rather than from the leach of the main. ‘Coz I can, and as it looks better there on a Marconi sloop as compared with being up the leach of the mainsail. I think.

I also generally fly burgees from the Starboard spreader due to masthead instruments (must rig a proper halyard and get a good long bamboo cane to get it back to the masthead one day…!), shifting the burgee to port when “going foreign” and flying a courtesy ensign from the starboard spreader as being the senior position. All practical and sensible evolution of tradition IMHO!