There is no more welcoming sight for sailors than to see a safe harbor with brightly colored pennants of other yachts and local clubs billowing in the breeze. The Royal Thames and Royal London Yacht Club burgees hang jauntily from the Cowes Trinity Landing and flagpole of our Shoreside base.

The creation of burgees began with the emergence of yacht clubs in England and around the world. This was a necessary follow-on to the invention and rise of privately owned boats used for maneuvers and racing. Originally designed as a “private signal,” commercial boat owners would create square or triangular flags with symbols and colors to show which company the boat belonged to.

The Royal Thames Yacht Club was at the forefront of the creation of fleet identifiers. The original members of the Cumberland Fleet of 1775 created a variety of pennants that were flown to identify themselves for their first race for a Cumberland Cup.

The beautifully framed King’s Fisher pennant and ensign in the Coffee Room of the Royal Thames Yacht Club show that, prior to the creation of our own now 150-year-old blue burgee, yachts would use ensigns and long pennants for identification.

The current burgee, a dark blue triangle with a white cross and its unique red crown, had its first recorded use in 1842. The adoption of burgees for private boats was also supported by the vexations of taxation, most notably harbor and customs duties. It is reported that private yacht club burgees were agreed for use in European ports so that private boats could receive customs exemptions on goods and commercial harbor duties.
Our earliest example of burgees are of course the King’s Fisher pennants, stunning examples of the earliest days of racing on the Thames, images of which are preserved in paintings and news articles of the day, two of these artefacts now hang framed in the Coffee Room.

A lovely example of the great memories a burgee can hold has recently been sent to hang in the Royal London Yacht Club and can be found as you enter the shoreside building in Cowes. Donated by his family, the much-used burgee of John P Taylor, member of the Royal Thames Yacht Club between 1966 until his death in 2020 is framed there. Taylor owned two ‘If and When’ yachts, the first, from 1976 to 1986 was a classic auxiliary yawl, he then acquired the sailing cruiser ‘If and When II’ in 1991.

I finish with this splendid photograph of a brand-new Club burgee, exhibited by someone you may recognize. This shows the crown of King Charles III, as established by his Royal Cypher, which was announced by the College of Arms on 27 September 2022. With the changes required by the Royal Thames, it is probably as well that burgees do not last forever.

Whilst on the subject of flags fraying and fading, members have been fined in Turkey for flying damaged courtesy flags. To add insult to injury, not only was one member fined but also had to pay the port police an extortionate sum for a new flag.