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Mauritius’ ensigns

Last modified: 2024-10-12 by ian macdonald
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About Mauritius’ ensigns

The Merchant Shipping Bill of Mauritius of 2006 is available online as a PDF file. Upon a quick look though it, it seems that it defines no other “national colours” then the flag of Mauritius. It may be that this made the civil and state enisgns of Mauritius obsolete? The Bill mentions the previous 1986 Act amended in 1992 — maybe they would have more data on, in that case, previous red and blue ensigns. There is also Merchant Shipping Act of 3 August 2007 which is basically the same (would the 2006 be a proposal for that 2007 act?)
Željko Heimer, 06 March 2010

Mauritius’ main flag maker still sells both the Mauritius red ensign and the Mauritius blue ensign. At this point, all that I know is that the standard size for the red ensign is 3×4½ ft while the blue ensign is 3×6 ft. They are 680.00 Mauritius rupees each or about US$22.00.
Clay Moss, 08 March 2010


State Ensign

Mauritius state ensign image by Zoltan Horvath, 10 July 2024

The Album 2000 [pay00] says:

3. Civil Ensign. ---/-S- 1:2
Blue ensign, based on British model, with the national flag in canton and coat of arms (without the white disk) in fly.
Željko Heimer, 14 June 2002

Porter Brothers flag makers of Liverpool (now out of business) told me that in the early 1980s they produced a batch of merchant ensigns to be sent to Mauritius; if they made up any government ensigns, I didn’t see them.
Clay Moss, 04 March 2010

Mauritius’ main flag maker still sells the Mauritius blue ensign. At this point, all that I know is that the standard size for the blue ensign is 3×6 ft. They are 680.00 Mauritius rupees each or about US$22.00.
Clay Moss, 08 March 2010

I haven’t found any pictures of real using of government ensign, it’s probably not used currently.
Zoltan Horvath, 10 July 2024


Civil Ensign

Mauritius civil ensign image by Clay Moss, 15 June 2010

Mauritius’ main flag maker still sells the Mauritius red ensign. At this point, all that I know is that the standard size for the red ensign is 3×4½ ft. They are 680.00 Mauritius rupees each or about US$22.00.
Clay Moss, 08 March 2010

Bruce Berry visited the main flag selling establishment in Port Louis, Mauritius, where he purchased a couple of Mauritian red ensigns and kindly sent me one of them. The badge has been embellished from the traditional version by having the golden sprigs of (what?) added and the letters "RM" which we assume to stand for "Republic of Mauritius". The image above shows pretty much as the ensign is made up. It measures 3×4.5 ft. The disk is 24 in in diameter, offset low in the fly half and all of the stuff inside is fairly close to what you see here. The Mauritius flag canton is ⅖ as wide as the whole ensign and in length ⁵⁄12 the length of the ensign. The whole ensign is cotton broad cloth.

The store had many in stock, and apparently the ensign is still regularly used. Bruce has visited the Mauritius Bureau of Standards among other places and has so far had no luck on getting any information on new proportions, rules of usage etc. for either the Mauritius red or Mauritius blue ensign. So, we don’t know if the new badge for the red ensign is an official one or if someone simply exercised a bit of artistic license in drawing this up.

Clay Moss, 15 June 2010

This appears to show the Presidential variant of the national arms, and I wonder if these have replaced the 1906 model for general use?
Christopher Southworth, 16 June 2010

Previous version

Mauritius old civil ensign image by Clay Moss, 11 Dec 2006

The Album 2000 [pay00] says:

3. Civil Ensign. ---/C-- 1:2
Red ensign, based on British model, with the national flag in canton and coat of arms on a white disk in fly.
Željko Heimer, 14 Jun 2002

Does anyone know if the current red ensign is actually utilized by the Mauritian merchant fleet? I have a colleague who lives in Mauritius who tells me that he has never seen a current red ensign. He says that the Mauritius national flag serves as the ensign at sea as well. Now, my colleague is not all that observant, so he may not be on target.
Clay Moss, 11 Dec 2006

I think that it’s official but has fallen into disuse. Porter Brothers flag makers of Liverpool (now out of business) told me that in the early 1980’s they produced a batch to be sent to Mauritius but that they never received another order afterwards.
Clay Moss, 04 Mar 2010

Porter Brothers was making the disk ⁴⁄9: The prototype sample they showed me was a 3×6 ft red ensign with a 16″ disk. I think (the batch) that they sent to Mauritius consisted of 4½×9 footers with 24″ badges, 3×6 footers with 16″ badges and 27×54 inch ensigns with 12″ badges.
Clay Moss, 04 Mar 2010

With large disc

Mauritius civil ensign image by Clay Moss, 19 March 2010

This design is based on Album 2000 [pay00], where the disk shown is rather large. The same drawing appears in the Corr. 4 of the Album [cor04].
Željko Heimer, 06 March 2010

I am not aware if there is a regulation regarding the size of the disk. In the Album 2000 [pay00] it’s certainly bigger than traditional British disk of ⁴⁄9ths hoist (which also the Brits dropped lately).
Željko Heimer, 14 June 2002

The Merchant Shipping Act 2007 doesn’t mention any ensign, only national flag.
https://dpp.govmu.org/
I haven’t found any pictures of real using of civil ensign, it’s probably not used currently.
Zoltan Horvath, 10 July 2024