Hah! Making my own courtesy flags for the Caribbean!

Courtesy flags...what are courtesy flags? According to wikipedia...

Courtesy Flag

A courtesy flag (or courtesy ensign) is flown by a ship in foreign waters as a token of respect by a visiting vessel. It is often a small (that is, smaller than the ship's own national ensign) national maritime flag of the host country, although there are countries (such as Malta) where the national, rather than the maritime flag is correct. The flag is customarily worn at the foremasthead of multi-masted vessels, the starboard yardarm or crosstree of the mast of single-masted vessels, and from the jackstaff of vessels without masts.

There you have it! To put it simple...a courtesy flag is a small flag of the country you are visiting with your boat and you fly it to show respect for that country :) Further research taught me that there are three different sizes for courtesy flags: 12"x18" is the most common, followed by 10"x20", followed by 12"x20". Believe me I googled and yahooed for quite a while in order to gain more knowledge on the subject and alas my research was rewarded! I can just imagine what a wonderful project this would be for cruising kids...many thanks to my friend Debbie Verstoep who messaged me that her son Matheus was in charge of making the courtesy flags when they were cruisers...he made them out of scrap sail cloth (that sailmakers donated to him) and painted them with acrylic colors and markers...she told me that her son to this day knows every single flag he made and the country they honored with it :) Way to go Verstoep family! If Matheus can do it there is hope that I can do it also...thanks Debbie and Matheus for inspiring me :)

To be honest with you...I was going to purchase the courtesy flags needed for the Caribbean Islands...all 28 of them...until my eyes almost popped out of my head when they saw the price tag of almost threehundred US Dollars for the set...you are reading correctly...threehundred Dollars...US! Although I am sure it is a nice set...with all due respect...but threehundred bucks for a set of flags that will last for only a few weeks to maybe two months before the Caribbean sun has gobbled them up is entirely too much money for these two sweeties on Orion!

Thank God for others who have traveled this path before :) My research brought me to the sailrite website and the book "Make Your Own Courtesy Flags..." (yeah yeah...and signal flags, but I am not interested in those...) by Bonnie Ladell and Matthew Grant. I ordered the book and shortly after receiving it was on my new venture of flag making :) Not only does this book list all the courtesy flags of the Caribbean it also tells about their meanings, about flag ettiquette and best of all...it contains templates for the flag details! Hah...piece of cake! Or so I thought...

To make a long story short...I figured out a way to make my own templates for the three different sizes of courtesy flags...because this flag maker is not going to measure each and every flag she makes...oh no! The templates needed to be stiff yet flexible...my Phifertex material that I had on board would work perfectly...and it did :) Below you can see the three templates framed with blue tape, as well as two strips for seam allowances of 1" for top and bottom and 1.5" for each side...

three templates made of phifertex

Now off to making the flags! To simplify the process I decided to start with the three flags that each cover several of the Caribbean Islands:

1. The British Red Ensign flag is also used for Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Island, Montserrat, and Turks and Caicos
2. Flag for France is also used for St. Martin, St. Barthelemy, Guadeloupe, and Martinique
3. Netherland Antilles flag is also used for Bonaire, Curacao, Saba, St. Eustatius, and St. Maarten

Note to self: Check out number three for accuracy, because some cruiser friends told me that just recently something has changed! No problem...I am starting with number one, which has not changed for sure. From the book I learned that the ratio of the British Red Ensign flag is 1:2 with a finished size of 10"x20"...out comes my 10x20 template and in very little time I have the thing pinned to my red nylon flag material, marked, cut, and prepared,for sewing :) Oh...I also decided to do two of the same flags at a time...this way I always have a spare :)

My very first set of British Red Ensign courtesy flags...ready to sew :)

Well...all that is left is the Union Jack in the left upper corner of the flag. I traced it from the book onto spinnaker cloth...next step is to paint the details...

Painting the details with acrylic fabric paint

Voila...the finished product...well...almost finished. Just need to sew around the Union Jack to reinforce it and put two grommets on the side for hoisting the flag...

Turned out quite okay :)

My British Red Ensign courtesy flags :)

By the way, I also learned that there is a right way and a wrong way to put up the Union Jack...admittedly I had no idea!

If you are interested in finding out more about this...here is a nice website:

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/geography/unionjack7.html


That's it for now...more next time :)