Our Cold War Hero - HMAS Ovens

Since before the Napoleonic Wars it was the custom for the ships of the Royal Navy to fly a ‘paying-off pennant’ from the top of the main mast when leaving the fleet to return to their home port or when decommissioning. This tradition has been maintained in the navies of the British Commonwealth. Laid out at the bottom of the cabinet is HMAS Ovens paying-off pennant. You may be wondering why it is so long. Well, you have to keep in mind that in the era of sail, flags were the main method of signaling ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore, so they had to be big or, as in this case, long. In order for the pennant to be seen from all positions, custom led to it being the length of the vessel. However, if the vessel had been on a long commission, or had its commission extended, the pennant was lengthened by sections equivalent to 1/24 of the vessel’s length for each extra month in commission.  That can lead to some pretty long pennants in some of the navy’s oldest ships. Of course, HMAS Ovens, being a submarine, does not have ‘masts’, as such, so the paying-off pennant was attached to the top of the attack periscope.