Shemaya,

Will you have a supply available for purchase in person at the Messabout this year?

So glad you like them, Pol!

Cheers,

Shemaya

We tend to be rugged individualists around here, and I for one would like to see that represented in the flags we fly.

You don't like the "official" house flag offering? Make your own. You have a split junk or other variant? Put it on your house flag. Make it in your boat's colours. Add your boat's name. Whatever.

But I do think that there should be just the official Association burgee, when flown at the masthead.  Keep the individualism for display elsewhere. 

Karlis wrote:

I banged up a few alternate JRA burgee designs last month, so here's some unsolicited opinions. Respect for everyone's work on this.

The white one with the tiny logo looks alternately like a bermuda mainsail, a surrender flag, or nothing at all. I'm not for departing completely with the design and JRA history. Nothing wrong with the white but it needs to be somewhat remarkable at a distance.

I'm not sure about the red-and-gold square there, it's quite a departure from anything I've seen associated with the JRA, the colour logo, the website and the newsletter. It has a bit of a kitch chinese restaurant feel, maybe would pair well with the Charlie Chan font and fake Chinese names seen on a lot of junk rigged boats.

I didn't believe that we had a mandate to change the burgee too dramatically, so I left it pretty much as it was, but brought in a tad more colour.

As for the house flag: kitsch?  Yes, it probably is.  So are a lot of things that bring fun and pleasure to life: fireworks; candlelit dinners for two; a full-on production of Aida; for that matter: small boats wearing lots of flags.  You don't have to buy one; people who have done so seem to like it: it brightens up the junkets that it's really intended for (we've had a couple of these flags in NZ for about 5 years) and it's harmless fun.  A stickler for correct etiquette will wear the burgee on a stick at the masthead, of course, and it would be nice to see that, but a lot of people are much more casual around flags, these days, and just want to add a bit of colour and frivolity to their lives. 

(The original logo had a Charlie Chan-style font, by the way, but somewhat more attractive.  Unfortunately, none of us working on the logo managed to track it down, so we had to make do with the ubiquitous Comic San MS.)

I banged up a few alternate JRA burgee designs last month, so here's some unsolicited opinions. Respect for everyone's work on this.

The white one with the tiny logo looks alternately like a bermuda mainsail, a surrender flag, or nothing at all. I'm not for departing completely with the design and JRA history. Nothing wrong with the white but it needs to be somewhat remarkable at a distance.

I'm not sure about the red-and-gold square there, it's quite a departure from anything I've seen associated with the JRA, the colour logo, the website and the newsletter. It has a bit of a kitch chinese restaurant feel, maybe would pair well with the Charlie Chan font and fake Chinese names seen on a lot of junk rigged boats.

In this modified burgee design the diamond is much larger, and in one version is much more prominent. I really like the logo element of the sail with blue with red second-to-top panel, I think it's distinctive and recognizable, and could be made the most of on the burgee.