ENSIGNS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 228, 26 September 1930, Page 14

ENSIGNS.

BED, WHITE AND BLUE

RESTRICTIONS ON THEIR USE. Fin-g etiquette is not a point with which many of our boating men are much concerned, judging by the flagrant cases one may see almost any Saturday in the season. Some boats, and this applies mostly to motor craft, go down harbour with two or more club burgees flying one above the other. To a yachtsman who has any knowledge of flags and how to fly them this is showing a gratuitous insult to all but the club represented at the masthead. Only the flag of one club should ever be flown at one time at the masthead. Where a cross-yard is fitted it would not be wrong to fly a different club flag at each end of the yard. The carrying of ensigns (rectangular flags) is almost as much abused as burgees (pointed flags). Since the year 1707 the "red ensign of His Majesty's Fleet" has been set apart as the appropriate flag for the British merchant vessel—and pleasure yachts. The Crown possesses the sole right of ordering what flags may be flown by British ships, and has done so, apparently, since 100 G. By virtue of this authority it delegates to certain yacht clubs the privilege of hoisting a special ensign—either the plain blue or white ensigns of HJM. Fleet, or the red or blue 'ensigns with the device of the privileged yacht club emblazoned upon it. The white ensign afloat is allocated solely to Royal yachts and to the members of the Royal Yacht Squadron, the plain blue ensign is similarly allocated to certain clearly defined clubs and the emblazoned ensign to the particular clubs whose device is upon it. The privilege of using these special ensigns is, in the first place, conferred upon the club under certain clearly defined conditions which need not be entered into here. What is important to observe, however, is that membership of a privileged club, i.e., a club which is permitted to hoist one of these particular ensigns does not automatically confer the same privilege upon the individual member. Each separate member who wishes to wear the special ensign of his club on his own ship must obtain a warrant from the Admiralty for that purpose. This permissive document is issued for each individual owner and covers one vessel only. If he possesses more than one yacht he must possess a separate warrant to cover each vessel. The question at once arises as to yachts' dinghies and tenders. These, by a rule printed on the back of the Admiralty warrant, may beai- the same ensign as. their owner's own ship—the one named in his actual warrant-—but only so long as the tender can conveniently be hoisted on board the parent vessel. 'The next exception to the warrant is any vessel which is used for commercial purposes, though what is defined as commercial is somewhat vague: such a craft is from the beginning ineligible for a warrant and cannot bear a privileged ensign. These various exceptions cover almost all the conditions in which a warrant cannot be granted and a special ensign worn. When a yachtsman ceases <to be a member of a privileged club, the special ensign of which he possesses Admiralty warrant to fly, that warrant must bo returned immediately. Summarising these rulings, therefore, a privileged ensign may be flown on the particular yacht of the member of a privileged club which is named in his warrant—so long as it is genuinely used for cruising, and so long as the warrantholder is in effective control of the ship, nnd so lon™' as the vessel is not used for a commercial purpose. The right to fly the blue ensign on their boats was granted to tho Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron when the prefix "Royal" was conferred, in 1907, subject to all the above conditions.