Menu

BURGEES

A Brief History of Burgees

Walk into almost any Yacht Club in the world, and you are likely notice a collection of colorful flags on display. Sometimes they are hung horizontally up near the ceiling so that they form a "ribbon of color" wrapping around the room. Other times, they are hung vertically from the rafters so that they move in rhythm like a gentle ocean wave. Sill other times, they are hung from a short flag standard at a 45 degree angle as though they are "saluting."

Whatever method a yacht club uses for displaying their flags, they are generally proud of their collection and more than willing to point out their more "exotic" and "prestigious" flags.

According to Merriam-Webster, a burgee (pronounced bur-jee) is (1) a swallow-tailed flag used especially by ships for signals or identification (2) the usually triangular identifying flag of a yacht club.

The word burgee likely comes from the French word “bourgeois”, which means shipowner. Of course, today we often associate the word “bourgeois” with wealth (see below).

Back in the days before VHF radio and cell phones, 19th century ship owners began creating personal flags (burgees) to identify their ships. Each vessel had its own design. Usually, the boat owner created more than one burgee for each boat with one of the burgees remaining on land. This enabled the ship to be signaled by someone on land hoisting their burgee when a ship or crew member was needed back at the dock. Over time, as ship owners added more vessels to their fleets, they began using uniform “burgee designs” for all the boats in the fleet with the result that burgees began to be identified with a specific business or group rather than a specific boat.

While no one knows the exact date, at some point burgees came to be identified less with the "boat owner" and more with the "Yacht Club" to which the boat owner belonged. Hence the owner of a modest 30 foot boat could proudly display their membership in the New York Yacht Club where 120 foot yachts were more the norm!

As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth century, and yachtsmen began to travel, it became the custom to trade burgees with other clubs. These were then returned to the yachtsman’s home club where they were put on display.

EYC's Burgee Collection

For more than eighty years, EYC has collected Yacht Club burgees, courtesy of members who have traveled throughout the country and around the world.


As of November 2024, we have 199 burgees in our collection. They represent 33 US States and Territories. Many of the names are familiar to folks who have traveled up and down the West Coast-- Seattle Yacht Club, Rose City Yacht Club, and San Diego Yacht Club to name a few. But we also have Yacht Club burgees from Alaska to Florida, and California to Maine.


We also have burgees from 20 foreign countries. Many of these are from places that few members will ever visit, let alone sail. These include places like the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, the Royal Tasmania Yacht Club, the Zulu Yacht Club (South Africa), or Grand Baie Yacht Club in the (Mauritius Islands). Hopefully an EYC burgee is also on display in each of these places.


Not only is it fun to see the burgees on display, but it is also fun to realize that there is a “story” behind every burgee. Perhaps the next time you travel, you can help add a new burgee and a story to our collection1.


Check out the following pages in this notebook. There you will find an

alphabetical listing of each and every burgee on display.


And just in case you are wondering, our burgees are not organized alphabetically, or chronologically. Nor are they organized by State, or Nation. To do so, would require us to constantly “reshuffle the deck” every time we received a new burgee. Rather they are simply displayed with an eye to a variety of colors and patterns. However, you will find the name and location of nearly every Yacht Club displayed on the burgees themselves.2


Fair Winds, Gary Powell


____________________________________________________________________


 1. If you are visiting a Yacht Club that is not listed, you can trade your EYC burgee and add to our collection. And if you do make a trade, the club will replace your EYC burgee at no cost.


 2. We have two “unidentified burgees” hanging near the kitchen that we still need to identify. They are pictured on the last page of the burgee notebook.

Thanks to the hard work of Gary Powell for making these burgees available for everyone to enjoy!! There is also a binder in the clubhouse that has all the burgees in it as well. 

Contact

Secondary address

Family