What is a yardarm on a flagpole?
What is a yardarm? Yardarms, also called crosstrees, are on gaff-rigged flagpoles. Gaff-rigged flagpoles resemble what is used at sea by naval ships, and the yardarms allow for added halyards to attach other types of flags or signals.
What is a gaff on a flagpole?
Gaff-rigged poles are used by navies, boaters and yacht clubs around the world. Onshore, the “yacht club style flagpole” with a gaff represents the mast of a ship. A gaff-rigged pole may, or may not, have a yardarm or crosstree.
What is the ball on a top of a military flagpole called?
finial ball
Scale the flagpole. At the top sits a little golden sphere known as the finial ball. Inside is a razor blade, a match, and a bullet. You must use the razor blade to cut the stars and stripes from the American flag, the match to burn the remains, and the bullet to defend the base or shoot yourself …
What does the gold ball on top of a flagpole mean?
The Legend on Top of Military Flagpoles In order to protect the sacred Starts & Stripes from falling into the wrong hands, a brave soldier must use the items hidden inside the gold ball on top of the flagpole to defend Old Glory to the death, or provide her with a proper burial.
Where is the yard arm?
A “yardarm” is a horizontal bar on the mast of a ship, and it is supposed that when the sun passed it at a certain time of day (around noon), sailors were allowed to drink.
What is a yard in nautical terms?
A yard is a spar on a mast from which sails are set. It may be constructed of timber or steel or from more modern materials like aluminium or carbon fibre. Although some types of fore and aft rigs have yards, the term is usually used to describe the horizontal spars used on square rigged sails.
Which flag is hoisted on the gaff?
If the flagpole is fitted with a gaff, the Australian National Flag should be flown from the peak of the gaff, which is the position of honour, even though the Australian National Flag is then lower than the flag flying from the top of the flagpole.
What is a mast and a gaff?
Gaff rig is a sailing rig (configuration of sails, mast and stays) in which the sail is four-cornered, fore-and-aft rigged, controlled at its peak and, usually, its entire head by a spar (pole) called the gaff.
Why is the ball on top of a flagpole called a truck?
‘Truck’ is the term for the finial — or ball — on top of the base headquarters’ flagpole. It’s kind of a trick question because every other ‘truck’ is either a military or privately-owned vehicle.
What time is past the yardarm?
The expression is believed to have originated in the north Atlantic where the sun would rise above the upper mast spars (yards) of square sailed ships around 11am. This coincided with the forenoon ‘stand easy’ when officers would go below and enjoy their first rum tot of the day.