I was telling someone about that flag that's driving me crazy. My listener was a non-boat person, and I was trying to think of a comparable irritating thing in regular life, so I wouldn't sound as tightly wound and boat-snobby as I really am. The best I could come up with is a car with its blinker on, driving for miles in front of you, signalling something that isn't true. A wrongly displayed flag is sort of like a car with its blinker on.
But she had a better analogy. As I talked about why flags matter, what you expect to see and why, she nodded. "I went to this concert," she said, "and a guy was playing a grand piano. He was really good. I had a seat up front, so I could see him pretty well, and as he's playing this piano, in a moment of pause, he takes a piece of gum out of his mouth and sticks it under the piano, then keeps on playing. You just don't expect someone who can play the piano so beautifully to do something like that."
A beautiful boat with a wrongly displayed flag is sort of like a car with its blinker on, and sort of like a concert pianist who puts a wad of gum on the bottom of the piano. I am gathering up my nerve to go out and make a gentle suggestion to the boat owner next time I see someone aboard.