Free Stockwin's Maritime Miscellany by Julian Stockwin

sea to rescue them and was awarded a gold medal from the Royal Humane Society.
    In 1817 Marryat published his Code of Signals for the Merchant Service , an adaptation of Sir Home Popham’s navy signalling system of 1803. Unlike the Popham system, which needed several numeral flags per hoist to denote a word, the Marryat system simplified things with alphabetical flags, thereby using three times fewer. As well as being adopted by the merchant marine it was used by many others, and served as the basis for the Universal Yacht Signals code published by the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1847.
    While still at sea Marryat wrote and had published a three-volume novel, The Naval Officer, or Scenes and Adventures in the Life of Frank Mildmay . He left the navy in 1830 to concentrate on his literary career and went on to write over ten more books, including a number of children’s titles.
    His code of signals for the merchant navy was so popular that it was in use unchanged until 1879, even though it had been officially replaced by the International Code of Signals in 1857, which was largely based on Marryat’s original conception.
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The Language of Flags
    Flags were an important means of communication between ships. However, it wasn’t until towards the end of the nineteenth century that the International Code of Signals was widely adopted, enabling ships of all nations to signal each other and be understood. This code was even designed so that the flags could be read by the colour-blind .
    Previous systems were individual to a particular fleet or squadron, and users required a unique codebook in which to look up the meaning. These were weighted with lead so they could be thrown overboard in case of capture .
    Nelson’s famous signal at the Battle of Trafalgar, ‘England expects that every man will do his duty’, required 13 separate flag hoists, 32 flags in total. The admiral initially wanted to use the word ‘confides’, but agreed to change it to ‘expects’ in order to use fewer flags .
    Colours, the national ensign flown at the masthead at sea, had special significance. It was acceptable to fly false colours, i.e. those of some other country, but not to fire on another ship without first hoisting one’s true colours. If a ship’s colours were flown upside down, it was the signal for distress. When a vessel was captured, the colours of the victor were hoisted above those of the prize .
    In large sea battles, frigates were stationed to one side out of the gun-smoke to act as ‘repeaters’, passing on signals from the commander-in-chief. Both sides agreed not to fire on these frigates .
    Flags, however, did have drawbacks. If the wind blew them end-on they could not be read; battle-haze often hid them; they were not visible at night; and only a limited number of flags can be flown at one time, so complex signals were impossible .
    Captains were often thus forced to fall back on the tactic of ‘speak the ship’ – foam up alongside and bellow at each other with a speaking trumpet .
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    A SQUARE MEAL – substantial repast. DERIVATION : sailors ate their food off square wooden plates with a raised edge called a fiddle. This design was to stop food falling off the plate and to set a limit on the amount of food taken. If a seaman overfilled the plate he was said to be ‘on the fiddle’ and could be punished.
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F LOWERS FROM THE ‘END OF THE WORLD’
    Henry the Navigator was the man chiefly responsible for Portugal’s heroic age of exploration between the 1430s and the 1550s, but he never actually set sail on any of these great voyages of discovery. Born in 1394 he was the third child of King John I of Portugal. Contemporary records describe him as a person who did not indulge in luxuries, was softly spoken and never allowed a poor person to leave his presence empty-handed.
    Henry established a maritime think-tank and gathered the great minds of the day around him. Under his patronage a number of