It is the biggest flag Carol Anderson has ever sewn. It's the biggest she has ever seen, in fact.
The artisan, who works out of rented quarters in Fremont, has created a 280-foot-long, 17-inch wide, swallow-tailed pennant at the request of the USS Carney.
That guided missile destroyer, itself 505 feet long and displacing 8,300 tons, has been serving in the Middle East and is about to return to its home port of Mayport, Fla.
U.S. naval tradition allows returning ships that have been outside the country for at least nine months to fly a ceremonial flag, properly known as a homeward-bound pennant, as they steam home and enter port.
Anderson, who works under the name C. Anderson & Co. Custom Flagmakers, said personnel aboard the Carney recently contacted her by e-mail after locating the Web site of her one-person business.
She said her site was designed to come up quickly in a search for "homeward-bound pennant," because those flags are a favorite of hers.
"I just love the way they look, though I never thought I'd make one this big," she said.
Without giving further information, the ship requested a 280-foot pennant with a single white star on the blue field at the attached end, properly known as the hoist. (The other end is known as the fly.)
She promptly got to work, folding, refolding and cutting yards of red, white and blue 200-denier ultraviolet-resistant nylon on her 12-foot-long work table. She sewed the lengths together using her twin-needle industrial sewing machine, with attachments that automatically join two widths of fabric and fold the fabric onto itself to form a finished edge.
As she sat assembling the pennant, she said, she wondered what she had gotten into, especially as the fabric repeatedly became tangled. But she completed the work last week and shipped it Friday, without knowing how it will be put aboard the Carney.
Anderson, 55, wouldn't divulge how much she charged the Navy for her work, but she said it took three solid days to finish.
The Navy couldn't be reached for details. But if the Carney followed the rules when ordering the pennant -- and, the Navy being the Navy, it probably did -- three conclusions can be reached:
There are 280 people aboard the Carney.
Naval Telecommunications Procedures 13(B), Section 1609, specifies that a homeward-bound pennant shall have 1 foot of length for each officer and enlisted person onboard who has been on duty outside the U.S. for more than nine months. The overall length of the pennant is not to exceed the ship's length. The Carney can carry 338 people, but it may not be at capacity.
The Carney has been continuously outside the U.S. for at least nine months, but less than 15 months. Those same procedures call for one star for nine months outside the country and a second star for each additional six months.
This was the Carney's first extended overseas tour of duty.
The Carney apparently had no pennant, though according to its Wikipedia online entry, it has served in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf.
The daughter of an Army man, Anderson got started in flag making in Newport, R.I., where she owned and operated a business for 14 years.
She opened in Seattle seven months ago, custom-making pretty much any flag, banner or pennant anyone -- even a nonboat owner -- could want.
P-I reporter Dan Richman
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