Hello, Sailor!

It's Dartmouth Regatta and as we drove to Dartmouth we stopped for me to take a picture from on high of racing yachts in Start Bay. But the end result looked very like this one and this one so instead you have a picture of a navy vessel 'parked' in the Dart (that's Kingswear in the background).

I tried to work out what the maritime signal flags said. If they're used as alphabet letters, I believe you read from top to bottom, although each flag in isolation carries its own message.

Can't see all the flags but those I have identified don't seem to convey anything recognisable ... IF P (?) ... OUMRPJN ... (?) So, taking their individual meanings, perhaps those on the left are talking about a reformed teetotaller ...
"I am altering my course for port"
then after a glass too many
"I am disabled ... communicate with me"?

Or are those on the right simply offering me a 'found poem'?

Man overboard
You are starting into danger
I have a doctor on board
The way is off my ship
(You may feel your way past me)

I am going to send a message by semaphore

NO!

Of course, given the hot air that politicians will be spouting even as I write, on the current emergency recall of parliament, no wonder the message is confused! The flags are probably saying something along the lines of 'Shall we invade Syria? Well, Iraq and Afghanistan went well, didn't they! Yes, let's start a war ...'!


NO!