Call us thrifty... or just plain cheap, but we got tired of spending $25 to $30 every few months for a new ship's flag. We discovered that four months was about as long as we could expect a flag to last under the conditions we flew them... virtually all the time.

Granted the flags would last longer if we were better about taking them "in" during windy weather. But when you take the flag "in" then you have the problem of where to store it. It ends up being a three foot pole kicking around the boat and getting in the way. So, generally we left it "out".

I had begun to notice that some boats had solved the storage issue by simply rolling the flag up on its pole and covering it with a tube of fabric. The flag could then be left IN PLACE, but wouldn't be beaten up in the wind. I thought this was a great idea, but with the flag thus protected, you couldn't see what nation the boat hailed from... not very patriotic!

I solved this problem by making my very own "flag snoodle! " from the remains of a previous flag. Our new flag is now protected in a tube, but you can still tell the boat's nationality. We like this compromise!

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