Semaphore

Semaphore

Social

Apprentice

120 hours

Even the loudest captain on a ship cannot be heard from miles away. For ship-to-ship communications, or ship-to-shore, semaphore flags are used. These can encode standard nautical messages, but can also be used for spelling out words, albeit at a much slower pace. Recognising the flags of various merchant marines or naval flags requires the heraldry skill, and alphabetic signalling requires literacy in the language used. Skill levels map more or less to language skills with semaphore. That is, an apprentice does not know all signs, signals closely, and can be easily overwhelmed by someone else sending messages too fast. Journeymen know all signs and can use them nearly as fast as speech, at least for those signals relevant to sailing. Journeymen have also learned how to use signal lamps for nightime communications. Masters can text one another at speeds rivaling Morse code or typing.