Hey,

I was at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town the other day, And there were two british ships at the docks, one was a Royal Navy Destroyer, the other was RFA Gold Rover, London.
The gold Rover was flying a blue flag with the Union Jack in the top left corner and a large golden anchor on the blue on the left. There were soldiers (RN Marines I guess) in British uniforms with SA80's walking about on both ships as well.

Forgive my innocence but I've never seen a flag like that or the initial RFA. The Gold Rover also had two large boom like things in the front, what are they? and what does RFA stand for?

Hi, the initials RFA stand for Royal Fleet Auxiliary, the navy's support vessels. I'm not sure about the booms at the front, could they be mountings for navigation or communications antennas?

RFAs are a curious hybrid. They are naval vessels, under RN control however many of the crew are civilians, contracted by the Ministry of Defence. As a curious coincidence, I saw the Gold Rover about a year ago here in NW Spain, while she was visiting the port of Coruña...well not much of a coincidence but.....Jim

Thanks alot guys, that answers another question that i did not know the answer too, only 9999999999999999999999999 more questions to go!

Dance my little gimps, dance!