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STARBOARD (STBD) PENNANT it, and even maritime authorities now frown
(SOPA) on its usage), it’s nevertheless been
historically ingrained in nautical language and
The STBD Pennant while flown on a RSN lore for many centuries.
ship in a foreign port denote that the Senior
Officer Present Afloat is currently onboard One prosaic explanation is that the gender of
the ship. Senior Officer Present Afloat is the Latin word for “ship” — Navis — is
usually referred by its acronym as SOPA and feminine. But people generally agree on the
referred to the highest-ranking officer by rank more romantic notion of the ‘ship as a she’
for the task group. phenomenon: that it stems from the tradition
of boat-owners, typically and historically
male, naming their vessels after significant

women in their lives — wives, sweethearts,
mothers. Similarly, and more broadly, ships
were once dedicated to goddesses, and later
also to mortal women of national or historic
significance, thereby bestowing a benevolent
feminine spirit on the vessels that would carry
seafarers across treacherous oceans.

Figureheads on the prows of ships were often
depictions of such female namesakes,
denoting the name of the ship for a largely
Hoisting the STBD Pennant to indicate that SOPA is illiterate maritime population. This practice
onboard the ship. dated from the early 18th century, before
which superstition had it that the presence of
That officer also known as the Commander women aboard sailing vessels — whether in
Task Group (CTG) is essentially the human or representative form — was an omen
commander of all RSN operations afloat in of bad luck. The practice of naming boats and
the harbour.
ships after women continues today, although
SOPA is a useful administrative function in certainly not exclusively, as does the habit of
foreign ports visited by the RSN ships. He is feminizing our sailing vessels.
responsible to the foreign civilian authorities
for the action of RSN ships and the behaviour
of crews under his or her command.

WHY WE CALL A SHIP A SHE

Why are ships and countries (and sometimes
cars and other vessels and vehicles) often
referred to with the feminine pronoun?
Although the practice has been in steady
decline for some time now, thanks no doubt to
feminism and PC journalistic style guides (the
Chicago and AP manuals strongly discourage