English flag

[Helli]

Hello,

 

Can anyone tell me what the "red point" on the english flag means?

 

 

 

 

Thank you

 

Helli

[Jim Lad]

Helli, that's the flag of a vice admiral.

 

John

[Helli]

Hello John,

 

Thank you very much!

 

Helli

[Chuck Seiler]

35 minutes ago, Jim Lad said:

Helli, that's the flag of a vice admiral.

What time frame?

[Mark P]

Good Evening Helli;

 

If you need to know more about flags used at sea, there is an excellent book by Timothy Wilson 'Flags at Sea', which gives a good history of them and is illustrated with many plates and drawings, some in colour.

 

The flag shown seems to have been in use from the later part of the 19th century

 

All the best,

 

Mark 

Edited February 22, 2021 by Mark P

[Helli]

Hi,

 

Because of the ship model building, i am actually interested about everything.

The history, the connections and the way of thinking.

About why this was done.

 

Helli

[allanyed]

Huge topic Helli!!!   Maybe a bit less daunting if you choose a time period and nationality to work on for a start.  For me personally, researching a vessel is as much fun as the build so I look for projects in which I can find a few ships for which I can find a list of their captains, voyages, battles if military, original contracts if built in a private shipyard, and so forth.   When Wayne Kempson and I worked on the Euryalus books, we wound up with about 30 pages in the first volume on her history from her build at Buckler's Hard, to her master's log while at Trafalgar, to her  proposed duel with an American ship during the War of 1812, to her time as a prison hulk for boys.   We even found a series of letters sent from one of her officers to his family while he was aboard and a note from Nelson to the Euryalus' captain at that time.  

Allan

 

Edited February 22, 2021 by allanyed

[Beef Wellington]

They are still used today as a command flag for officers of flag rank and for Commodores.  As shown above, the flag for a Vice Admiral is reversed as the red spot (or 'ball') should be on the same side as the hoist.  A Rear Admiral would have an additional ball in the quadrant below below, and an Admiral would have none (!).  A Commodore would have a broad pennant (meaning 2 points) of the same design as above with a single ball.

Edited February 22, 2021 by Beef Wellington

[Ian_Grant]

2 hours ago, Mark P said:

Good Evening Helli;

 

If you need to know more about flags used at sea, there is an excellent book by Timothy Wilson 'Flags at Sea', which gives a good history of them and is illustrated with many plates and drawings, some in colour.

This comment made me think of Sheldon's "Fun With Flags" blog on "The Big Bang Theory". What a great show that was.