This started a few months back when Micki sent out a note to several past Commodores asking us to identify several “burgees” she had inherited as our new Commodore. She described them in enough detail to prompt the following response from me:

For starters, what you have are flags, not burgees. Burgees are club emblems, usually triangular or swallow-tailed. Flags denote rank within an organization and are secondary to burgees in terms of place of honor.

On a sailboat, the stern is the first place of honor and only the national or yacht ensign should be flown from there. The starboard spreader is the next place and normally where a burgee should be shown. An officer’s flag is third of the signals mentioned so far, and should be flown from the port spreader. Note, it is never, never, never appropriate to fly two flags from the same halyard. If a flag or flags must be omitted for lack of a halyard, do it from the lowest rank and work up.

Actually, there’s an exception to the multiple flags from one halyard rule, but I’ll hope you never encounter it. If your vessel happens to be captured by a vessel belonging to a foreign country, it’s appropriate to fly that country’s ensign above yours to indicate this status.

So what happens if you’re cruising in Canada and you want to show both your cub affiliation and your current status as our Commodore? Technically, you shouldn’t. The Canadian flag should be shown from the starboard spreader and your single club burgee should move to port. The officer’s flag should be omitted. And that’s what I’d do.

The rules do have an interesting anomaly. Let’s say you’re a member of two clubs and you’re staying at the facilities of one that requires you to show its burgee. It also happens, you’re an officer of the other club with the right to show a flag. Can you do it with only the other club’s burgee showing? Yep, you may, and it’s more correct than showing both burgees plus the officer’s flag on only two halyards.

How do I know this stuff? Many years ago I had the honor, sort of, of hosting two flag officers from the U.S. military. One was a Brigadier General in the Marine Corps, the other a Lt. General in the Army. As you can imagine, they take flag etiquette rather seriously where they come from. I had access to a copy of the NYYC yearbook and looked up what to do. No matter I was Commodore of SSSS, both men seriously outranked me. That said, I was in command of the boat, so my burgee of choice, SSSS it happens, flew from the starboard spreader, the three star Lt. General’s flag from port. The one star got no respect at all.

Bill Sheldon, Opposition