Flying ensigns from gaffs

Last modified: 2000-01-07 by phil nelson
Keywords: gaff |
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Florence, Alabama has just built a new marina with a signal mast including a gaff. This structure is treated as if it were the signal mast of a ship, and the national ensign (the Stars and Stripes, in this case) flies at the gaff peak, which is the position of honor. The masthead and yardarms are suitable for club flags and personal flags, or I suppose state and municipal flags.
John Ayer, 08 July 1999

It is undoubtedly common practice among yacht clubs to fly the national ensign at the gaff (the diagonal member that projects aft from the crosstree on a mast) with the club burgee at the peak of the mast. But the authority for it is not clear, at least to me. The only parallel I know of that has official sanction is that when USN and USCG ships display the ensign while under way, they fly it at the gaff. The commission pennant, command pennant, or flag officer's flag flies at the peak of the same mast. There are two problems with applying this precedent to marinas and yacht clubs, however: (1) the law gives the President authority to modify the flag display rules in the case of the armed forces, and Navy/Coast Guard regulations fall under that authority; and (2) marinas and yacht clubs, being landbound, can't get under way.

If one could show that the USN/USCG fly the ensign at the gaff on gaff-rigged masts at shore facilities, that would answer objection 2, but not objection 1. I've been to a number of US naval installations and don't know that I've ever seen a mast rigged with a gaff at one of them. The arrangement I see most often is a mast with crosstree, with the ensign displayed at the peak, the commanders personal flag, if any, at the starboard yardarm, and any award pennants at the port yardarm.
Joseph McMillan, 09 July 1999

I am not expert in this field, but have picked up enough scraps of information to explain this point, I think. Anyone who can improve it, please do.

The stern is the position of command in a boat; even a canoe is steered from the stern. As boats get bigger and acquire more steering gear, like sweeps or a rudder, this ennobling of the stern becomes more pronounced. In the sailing navies of which I have any knowledge, officers' quarters were aft, and in the U.S. Navy the enlisted men were forbidden to venture aft. A medieval nobleman took his banner aboard his ship, and often had it fixed to the stern rail while he remained aboard. As warfare was nationalized, the king's ensign replaced the nobleman's banner, and the English ensign staff was fixed to the stern rail.

Northern European ships seem to have been, in the early days, square-rigged: the masts carried horizontal yards from which were suspended rectangular sails. In Mediterranean waters lateen rigs were common: the mast carried a slanted yard from which hung a triangular sail:

About five hundred years ago the lateen rig seems to have lost considerable ground to the square rig, I suppose because square sails could catch so much more wind. When Columbus had his little ships fitted up for a long voyage across the Atlantic he had the remaining lateen yards changed to square yards, as I recall. However, it seems something was lost: a lateen sail, exerting more pressure on one side of the mast, is useful in turning a ship. For this reason mariners decided to save the higher end of the lateen yard on the mizzen (aftermost) mast, making it the spar that we now call the gaff:

From this they hung a sail known in English as the spanker. It was rather narrow. When they wanted to exert more torque they extended the spanker with a triangular sail, called the driver. It was attached to the gaff peak, and extended at its base by a swinging boom:

This combination turned out to be so useful that the two sails were sewn together to form a single sail that was known indifferently by the names of both its parents, and the boom became a permanent part of the rigging. Now we get back to flags. The boom is so long that it sweeps across the stern rail every time the ship tacks, so the ensign staff had to be removed when the ship got under way. Where to put the ensign? The captain and other officers were still aft, and the nearest position from which they found it practical to fly the ensign turned out to be the gaff peak. When a ship was moored the ensign staff could be set up again, and was. This was the practice in the eighteenth century, when the U.S. Navy was created, and now that warships are of steel and the signal mast no longer carries a boom, our navy still flies the ensign at the gaff peak when under way, at the ensign staff when motionless. I understand that the British navy, which has an institutional memory going back to the late middle ages, has reverted to the earlier practice, and now flies its ensign at the ensign staff only.

When a yacht club has a flagpole on the landward side of its clubhouse, it flies its national flag (land flag, where the question arises) at the top and any others underneath it in order of rank. If it has a signal mast on the seaward side, it is treated as if it were a signal mast on a ship, and the ensign flies at the gaff peak if there is a gaff, otherwise at the masthead. The British navy, according to what I have read, flies the white ensign at its shore facilities, even though they never get under way. John Ayer, 09 July 1999

To quote from the 1951 Admiralty Manual of Seamanship;

All H.M. ships in commission wear the White Ensign. It is worn at the ensign staff when in harbour; it is also worn at the ensign staff at sea whenever possible, but in bad weather, or when cleared for action, or during war, it is worn at the peak of the gaff on the mainmast, or on a suitable staff mounted in the after part of the ship.

I think that nothing has changed since then, except that the Navy now consists mainly of small ships, in which, when at sea, it is usually more practical to fly the ensign from a mast rather than the ensign staff, particularly since many operate helicopters over the stern.

The White Ensign is flown at the peak of all RN/RM shore establishments, commanded by a commissioned officer, regardless of distance from the sea. There used to be a Naval Air Station near Nottingham, almost as far from the sea as you can get in Britain, but it was called H.M.S.Gamecock and flew the White Ensign. I can't remember if a commissioning pennant is flown at the masthead of shore establishments; I think not. Ships go in and out of commission, depending upon their readiness for operational use, and fly a pennant only when in commission, but I think that shore stations were not "commissioned" as such. If an admiral is based at, or visits, a shore station, his flag is flown from the masthead.

RN medical establishments probably flew (I'm not sure if it is still the case) the Union Flag instead of the White Ensign because of the Geneva Convention. In wartime the Union Flag was moved from the peak to the masthead and a "Geneva Flag" (Red Cross Flag) was flown from the peak.

There used to be (perhaps still is) an unusual practice in connection with flying an ensign on a yacht with a Bermudan rig. This is the type which looks like a child's drawing of a yacht, with the mainsail a right-angled triangle, the hypotenuse rising from the outer end of a boom near deck level, to a point at the top of the mast; no yards or gaffs from which to fly a flag. In accordance with the principle that, if the ensign could not be flown from an ensign staff on the stern rail it should be worn in a position as near to that as possible, the recommended practice was to attach the ensign two thirds of the way up the leech (rear edge) of the after sail. Presumably it was necessary to incorporate a couple of clips into the edge of the sail and attach the ensign as the sail was raised. It didn't work very well as the ensign tended to curl behind the lee of the sail and not fly out.
David Prothero, 14 July 1999

Thanks to D. Prothero's clarification of the terminology of masts, I've read the US Navy regulations on display of the ensign more carefully. They may (with some skillful presentation) serve to help the marina in Florence, Alabama, overturn the mayor's objection to displaying the US flag at the gaff of its new flag-mast.

Navy Regulations, Article 1206. Morning and Evening Colors.
Para. 1. The ceremonial hoisting and lowering of the national ensign at 0800 and sunset at a naval command ashore or aboard a ship of the Navy not under way shall be known as morning and evening colors, respectively, and shall be carried out as prescribed in this article.

Para 4. At morning colors, the ensign shall be started up at the beginning of the music and hoisted smartly to the peak or truck [i.e., masthead] . . .

Navy Regulations, Article 1259. Display of National Ensign, Union Jack and Distinctive Mark from Ships and Craft.
Para 3. When not underway, the national ensign and the union jack shall be displayed from 0800 until sunset from the flagstaff and the jack staff, respectively.

In the (United States) Navy Technical Paper 13 Flags, Pennants and Customs Issued by the Naval Telecommunications Command Wash. D.C. One my find the following:

ANNEX F
MISCELLANEOUS CUSTOMS AND PRACTICES

...01.0F.0130
DISPLAY OF THE U.S. NATIONAL ENSIGN FROM VARIOUS TYPE MAST

Proper display of the national ensign from various type masts are listed below:

Pole Mast: At the peak unless at half mast when it shall be displayed three-fourths of the way to the peak. Pole Mast with a Crosstree or Crossarm: At the peak of the pole. When displayed with foreign national ensigns or flags, it shall be displayed from the outermost halyard of the right hand side of the Crosstree. When displayed at half-mast, it shall be displayed with the top of the ensign even wit h the Crosstree or Crossarm.

Pole Mast with a Crosstree or Crossarm and Gaff: This type of mast is known as "Yacht Club Mast". Displayed from the gaff*. When displayed with other foreign ensigns or flags, it shall be displayed the same as with a Pole Mast with a Crosstree or Crossarm.

We intend to construct a flag mast at our yacht club. could you be so kind as to answer some questions please. what is the distance between the truck and the yardarm? what is the distance between the truck and the gaff? what is the distance between the gaff and the yardarm? how many halyards are on the yardarm? which way does the gaff point, towards the clubhouse or towards the water? does the club's burgee fly at the truck and the country's flag at the gaff? where do the visiting club's burgees fly? on what halyards do the signal flags fly for a race in progress?
Barry Turner, 20 November 1999

I contacted Mr. Peter Edwards, president of the Burgee Data Archives, in Canada, and he gave me the following answer:

A "full mast" includes mainmast (in two parts), topmast, gaff, and upper and lower yardarms.

However, the upper yardarm may be omitted.

Assuming the total height of the flag mast is 16 units, then upper portion will be 7 units, and the lower portion 10 units, and the overlap will be one unit.

In answer to your specific questions:

1. distance truck to yardarm - 7 units
2. distance truck to gaff - 8 units
3. distance gaff to yardarm - 1.5 units (gaff below yardarm)
4. four halyards on the yardarm (and two on the upper yardarm if there is one)
5. assuming the mast is in front of the clubhouse, then the gaff will point towards the clubhouse. The clubhouse is considered a ship proceeding at sea (the front of the house considered the bow of a ship) and the ensign, on the gaff, will therefore be towards the stern
6. the burgee is at the truck
7. the ensign (usually the country's maritime flag) at the gaff
8. visitor's burgee on starboard halyard (only one flag per halyard except for signal flags)
9. signal flags: it's your decision, provided there are no other flags on the yardarm halyards.