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The numbers and letters on the sail of any boat signify three things:

1. A class insignia or logo which will indicate the class of the boat.

2. There are letters which represent the assigned code given by the International Sailing Authority to each national sailing authority and thus represents the country from where the boat and owner come from if they are their country is indeed registered with the Federation. These letters include the national code, or country of origin, i.e., USA, CAN, GER, etc.

3. The last group, which are numbers, serve to identify the specific boat that displays them. These numbers are assigned by either the national sailing authority or the applicable International Class Association and help to identify a single vessel and its owner.

The information above is usually located on the mainsail, but can also be found on the head-sail and the spinnaker.

The next time you look at the mainsail of a boat, you will likely see that it reads as follows: 1) Class of the boat; 2) Nation that the boat comes from; 3) The unique sale number assigned to the boat's owner.

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