Flag storage . How?

[sahona]

How do you store your signal flags?
Or, put another way, do you ever use them apart from dressing overall?
In which case is it worth wasting time separating them and putting them in the correct dookits, only to have
to join them up (in the correct sequence) again next time out?
Mine live in a multi-pouched sort of tool-roll, and after dressing the summerhouse overall for the barbie at the weekend, I have left them in a string ready for deployment at short notice.
The only problem is, if really needed one for proper use, I would need to use the sequence list to find which pocket it has ended up in!

[DaveS]

I've just bought a set. Force 4 had a cheap deal on to celebrate Her Maj's jubilee! I think the idea of leaving them connected up in the right order is a good idea, since that's probably their most usual use, and I think I might do that too. Mine came with a small label sewn on each giving the flag's designation (I know, I know). For the letters and numbers this is bold and dense enough to read through the nylon pouch, leaving only the three subs and the answering pennant not immediately visible, which should be good enough to allow fairly easy selection of an individual flag if required. Without such labels the pockets could be marked in the dressed overall sequence.

[marisca]

I often fly AL, Cuan Sound could require MP, and there's lot's more + numeral pennants for class racing. Separate them and put them back into their slots, you lazy sods.

[sahona]

Hmm. If I decide to fly my intentions, I will need to buy the admiralty signals book at no doubt great cost.
I will also need it to decipher your message as well, so Marisca, your best intentions are to no avail if those around you can't 'read'. (pls explain AL & MP)
All I know is NC and I had to refresh on what they look like.
I suspect I'm not alone in my ignorance of the code flags, never having been a professional seaman. The last time they were mentioned to me was in a DTI-run yachtmaster course in the late '60s.

[marisca]

The septics, who are much more generous with info than our mean spirited, blood sucking bureaucracy, have released International Code of Signals.

AL = I have a doctor on board
MP = I am in shallow water. Please direct me how to navigate.

Have fun!

[sahona]

Downloaded. Will peruse at leisure. Thankyou for that link.

'MP' seems rather coincidental, especially if the floods reach Westminster...

[aquaplane]

I was watching a fellow Westerly owner putting together a string of signal flags out of one of those roll up holders the other week. Not only was he consulting the official words on the correct order, he was putting them the right way up so that the ones from the fore peak to the mast head were the right way up and the ones from the mast head down the back stay were too.

I bought 2 lengths of bunting, the ones from the front to the top were in the right order but upside down, the others were OK but only reached the end of the boom.

There was a cruise ship in Oban with all the right flags, but not necessarily in the right order, A, B, C, D, I was so shocked I almost did something about it, but couldn't be asred.

[Nick]

.
A nice set of drawers from Ikea perhaps, or a second hand set of left luggage lockers?

[DaveS]

I was watching a fellow Westerly owner putting together a string of signal flags out of one of those roll up holders the other week. Not only was he consulting the official words on the correct order, he was putting them the right way up so that the ones from the fore peak to the mast head were the right way up and the ones from the mast head down the back stay were too.

Jings, I hadn't thought of that - good point. That does mean that you have to know where the top point is in the string before you start: I can see that measuring respective distances from mast to bow and stern attachment points is going to be required so that 36 can be divided into the proper proportions... Complicated business, this.

[ubergeekian]

Jings, I hadn't thought of that - good point. That does mean that you have to know where the top point is in the string before you start: I can see that measuring respective distances from mast to bow and stern attachment points is going to be required so that 36 can be divided into the proper proportions... Complicated business, this.

All the flags except E, L, N, O, U, Y, Z, 6, 7 and 9 are symmetrical about a horizontal axis (the top's the same as the bottom, for those who eschew the pan loaf) so a sensible order for dressing overall would stick those all together. Alas the official order doesn't: E Q p3 G p8 Z p4 W p6 P p1 I CODE T Y B X 1st H 3rd D F 2nd U A O M R p2 J p0 N p9 K p7 V p5 L C S

[sahona]

At the apex,(where the toggles come together) I just added a wee bit of string that is easily picked up when taking them out of the storage pockets. - I have to admit that during the first Prestwick promenade celebrations I flew the aft string upside-down.
Fortunately, the bay is so shoal nobody knew we were there, far less interpreting flags...

[DaveS]

At the apex,(where the toggles come together) I just added a wee bit of string that is easily picked up when taking them out of the storage pockets.

Yes, I was thinking of that: two loops for the toggles and another for the halyard...