Code Flags
Before radio, the only way to communicate ship-to-ship or ship-to-shore was with flags. Even today ships that wish to maintain radio silence use flags to send messages or commands. Also, because ships at sea and on land, may not speak the same language, flags have international meanings so that crew memebers from many nations can communicate with each other.

There are 26 alphabet flags, 9 numeral flags, 3 repeater flags and an answering pennant flag.

At Harbor Specialties, we make good use of the International Code of Signals by adorning shirts, caps, license plates, decals and other items with code flags that are embroidered, silk screened, and printed. We also sell nylon flags.

Besides spelling out initials and really clever words the flags, used singly, can indicate common, important or urgent situations. For instance, dive boats are required to show flag code Alpha on a rigid panel but they often skip this rule and use an unofficial flag with a red field and white cross. We don't know why this is. There is a lot of other stuff about flags that we don't know but a lot more that we do, so read our Fall 2004 Harbor Talk to see just how much we know... and don't know about code flags.