For at least 150 years, individual boaters have flown aft a rectangular, triangular, or swallowtail flag called a burgee to distinguish one boat from another. More prevalent have been the burgees that distinguish one yacht club from another. The earliest yacht club is an Irish yacht club with its own distinctive colors, borders, and letters.
In America, the oldest yacht club is the the New York Yacht Club, which has the oldest burgee in America. The burgee has but few colors, a Latin cross with the longer piece running horizontally and the shorter piece running vertically, along with a star.
Several years ago, a group of cruisers formed America’s Great Loop Cruisers Association. Full-fledged members have transited the entire loop, within a given period of time, comprised of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the Erie Canal, the Great Lakes, either the Mississippi or Missouri Rivers, the Gulf of Mexico, down the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to Key West, returning to the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. Whether or not a boat is entitled to fly one or the other of the two burgees of distinction depends upon completion of transits pursuant to the rules of the Association.