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The full string of code flags flown for ceremony, spelling nothing.
Also known as: Dressing ship, Ship covered in flags, Bunting on a boat
A vessel strung bow to stern with signal flags is not signalling. The order is chosen for colour contrast, and the whole point is that no message can be read out of it.
The practice of flying the full set of code flags in a continuous line from the bow, over the mastheads, to the stern, on national and ceremonial occasions.
Contexts: Navigation
The sequence is arranged so that no readable message forms and so that adjacent flags contrast — square flags alternating with pennants. A reader trying to decode a dressed ship is reading a decoration.
Deliberately meaningless. That is the convention, not an accident.
Done in harbour and at anchor rather than under way, so a vessel dressed overall at sea is unusual and generally ceremonial.
A continuous line of small square flags and tapering pennants running from the bow up over the masts and down to the stern.