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Compagnie Générale de Navigation (Switzerland)

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The big beautiful white ships that sail on Lake Leman belong to the Compagnie Generale de Navigation (CGN, website), a Swiss shipping company with its headquarters in Lausanne. The CGN is the biggest inland water, passenger shipping company in Europe. Tourists enjoy the ships of CGN in summertime, as well as Savoyards working in Switzerland, who take the CGN ships between Evian and Lausanne all the year round.

The ships of the CGN fly the rectangular Swiss civil ensign at the stern and the French civil ensign at the bow. In addition, the ships of the CGN have sometimes, but not always, a specific "flag dressing": a halyard is tightened above the passengers' deck and decorated with four rectangular flags representing the banks of Lake Leman. The four flags are:

Vaud
Geneva

Valais

Savoy (France)
images by ND

The three Swiss flags are simplified versions of the official flags:

Vaud: motto omitted from the white field
Geneva: heraldic charges omitted from both fields
Valais: stars omitted
Savoy: cross thicker than usual

ND, 4 June 2004