The Red Ensign or "Red Duster" is the civil ensign of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is one of the British ensigns, and it is used either plain or defaced with either a badge or a charge, mostly in the right half.
In British maritime law and custom, an ensign is the identifying flag flown to designate a British ship, either military or civilian. Such flags display the United Kingdom Union Flag in the canton, with either a red, white or blue field, dependent on whether the vessel is civilian, naval, or in a special category. These are known as the red, white, and blue ensigns respectively.
A maritime flag is a flag designated for use on ships, boats, and other watercraft. Naval flags are considered important at sea and the rules and regulations for the flying of flags are strictly enforced. The flag flown is related to the country of registration: so much so that the word "flag" is often used symbolically as a metonym for "country of registration".
Portland Harbour is located beside the Isle of Portland, Dorset, on the south coast of England. Construction of the harbour began in 1849; when completed in 1872, its 520-hectare (1,300-acre) surface area made it the largest human-made harbour in the world, and it remains one of the largest in the world today. It is naturally sheltered by Portland to the south, Chesil Beach to the west and mainland Dorset to the north. It consists of four breakwaters: two southern and two northern. These have a total length of 4.57 km (2.84 mi) and enclose approximately 1,000 ha of water.
The White Ensign, at one time called the St George's Ensign because of the simultaneous existence of a crossless version of the flag, is an ensign worn on British Royal Navy ships and shore establishments. It consists of a red St George's Cross on a white field, identical to the flag of England except with the Union Flag in the upper canton.
The current state flag of New South Wales was officially adopted in 1876. The flag is based on the defaced British Blue Ensign with the state badge located in the fly. The badge, based on the coat of arms, is a white disc with the cross of St George, a golden lion passant guardant in the centre of the cross and an eight-pointed gold star on each arm of the cross.
Trafalgar Day is the celebration of the victory won by the Royal Navy, commanded by Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, over the combined French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805.
Responsibilities for traditional coast guard duties in Australia are distributed across various federal, state and community agencies. The de facto coast guard of Australia is the Maritime Border Command, a joint command of the Australian Defence Force and the Australian Border Force which works alongside the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, and the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. Each state and territory government have specific maritime safety agencies and police marine units. In addition, there are several private volunteer coast guard organisations which act as auxiliary search and rescue services and maritime safety educators with the largest organisations being the Royal Volunteer Coastal Patrol established in 1937, the Australian Volunteer Coast Guard established in 1961, and Marine Rescue New South Wales established in 2009.
A clearance diver was originally a specialist naval diver who used explosives underwater to remove obstructions to make harbours and shipping channels safe to navigate, but the term "clearance diver" was later used to include other naval underwater work. Units of clearance divers were first formed during and after World War II to clear ports and harbours in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe of unexploded ordnance and shipwrecks and booby traps laid by the Germans.
The Royal Naval Auxiliary Service (RNXS) was a uniformed, unarmed, civilian volunteer service, administered and trained by the Royal Navy to operate in the ports and anchorages of the United Kingdom in an emergency. Although the abbreviated title would logically have been RNAS this abbreviation had long been taken by the various Royal Naval Air Stations, so RNXS it was. It maintained training units, and vessels at most major ports in the UK. and was formed in 1963 from the amalgamation of the Royal Naval Mine-watching Service (RNMWS) and Admiralty Ferry Crew Association in response to the perceived nuclear threat to British ports. The service was disbanded on 31 March 1994 due to Ministry of Defence (MOD) cuts. Most vessels from its fleet were transferred to the Royal Navy or sold, with the exception of XSV Loyal Volunteer, which was struck by a ro-ro ferry while berthed in Ipswich Harbour and was later scrapped.
Ynys Gaint is a small island in the Menai Strait connected to the town of Menai Bridge on Anglesey by a causeway and also a concrete bridge erected by Sir William Fison in the 1930s. Literally translated Ynys Gaint mean Kent Island.
The Royal Naval Mine Watching Service was a civilian organisation formed in 1952 as part of the auxiliary forces of the British Naval Service.
HMS Exploit is an Archer-class patrol vessel of the British Royal Navy, built in Woolston by Vosper Thornycroft and commissioned in 1988. She is assigned to the Royal Navy Coastal Forces Squadron, carrying out a range of activities both in the U.K. and overseas.
The Archer class is a class of patrol and training vessel in service with the United Kingdom's Royal Navy, commonly referred to as a "fast training boat". Most are assigned to Coastal Forces Squadron. HMS Tracker and HMS Raider are armed and provide maritime force protection to high value shipping in the Firth of Clyde and are most commonly employed as escorts for submarines transiting to Faslane. Pursuer and Dasher were also armed during their deployment on maritime force protection duties with the Gibraltar Squadron from 2020-2022.
HMS Explorer is an Archer-class P2000-type patrol and training vessel of the British Royal Navy. The ship is primarily assigned to the Yorkshire Universities Royal Naval Unit (URNU), serving the universities of Hull, Sheffield and Leeds. The ship is based in Kingston-Upon-Hull and mainly operates on the East coast of the UK, particularly in and around the Humber estuary.
The Star of India refers to a group of flags used during the period of the British Raj in the Indian subcontinent. India had a range of flags for different purposes during its existence. The Princely states had their own flags which were to be flown alongside the British flag as a symbol of suzerainty. The official state flag for use on land was the Union Flag of the United Kingdom and it was this flag that was lowered on Independence Day in 1947. The flag of the governor-general of India was defaced with the Star of India. The civil ensign and naval ensign were the Red Ensign or Blue Ensign, respectively, defaced with the Star of India emblem.
There are many customs and traditions associated with the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. Many of these traditions have carried on to other Commonwealth navies, such as Canada, India, Australia and New Zealand. These include formal customs such as separate crests associated with ships, ensigns and fleet reviews. There are also several less formal customs and traditions, including Naval slang commonly referred to as Jack Speak and the traditional games of Uckers and Euchre.
The Government Service Ensign is a defaced Blue Ensign flown by vessels owned by the British Ministry of Defence for which no other ensign is appropriate. It is most commonly seen flown by warships undergoing contractors' trials before being commissioned into the Royal Navy, and former Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service vessels now operated by Serco Denholm.
The Admiralty Ferry Crew Service was a civilian organisation formed during World War Two as part of the auxiliary forces of the British Naval Service.
In 1989 the Royal Navy was under the direction of the Navy Department in the UK Ministry of Defence. It had two main commands, CINCFLEET and Naval Home Command.
