Flummoxed by flags
Boats have played a large part in a couple of our recent puzzles. We’re currently half way through a picture of two barges in the centre of Lincoln, but early last week we were finishing Carol Dyer’s picture, ‘Annapolis Street Festival’, which features a boat named Pride of Annapolis, a boat which, as amateur vexillologists, we found more than a little intriguing.
I bet I know what you’re saying now:
Amateur vexi-what-ogists?
(All right, all right, it just means flag enthusiasts — but you can call us ‘anoraks‘.)
Flags have special meanings when they’re displayed on boats. Hoist lots of flags all at the same time and you can spell out messages both to other boaters and also to landlubbers like us. But try to decipher the flags on Pride of Annapolis and you’ll be left scratching your head in puzzlement, because here, according to the trusty Wikipedia guide to maritime signal flags, is what the Pride’s flags mean:
R-T-D-Y-N-Z-U
Which can mean only one thing:
Dictionary overboard!