PART 2
Definition Fetching A boat is fetching a mark when she is in a position to pass to windward of it and leave it on the required side without changing tack.
The hailing boat may be standing into danger if the mark is a solid object such as a committee vessel – but the rule forbids hailing for room to tack if the hailed boat can fetch the mark, which she may not be laying but which she can shoot by luffing. Let us assume that, in all the following examples, the hailed boat can indeed fetch the mark.
When the mark is the committee boat well before boats are approaching it to start, and two boats are approaching it during pre-start manoeuvres, a hail for room to tack does not break the last paragraph of rule 20.1, even if the hailed boat can fetch it, since the definition Fetching is careful to include the fact that it applies only when the mark has a required side. Although the committee boat is a mark, it does not have a required side before it is being approached to start, and so the last paragraph of rule 20.1 does not apply.
However, when boats are starting close-hauled and one of them finds she needs room from another to tack to avoid a committee boat surrounded by navigable water, the preamble to Section C says that no rule of Section C applies – and rule 20 is a rule of Section C1
. Therefore, she is not entitled to room to tack. However, the hail, although
invalid, must be responded to (see rule 20.2(b)) and either the hailing boat must then take a penalty for breaking this rule of Part 2, or the hailed boat may wish to protest.
No such limitation applies at course marks or finishing marks. So the prohibition from hailing for room to tack will apply to course marks which are substantial in nature, such as a mark-boat or a geographical feature.
When the finishing line projects from a committee boat’s mast, the vessel is a mark, and this rule will be relevant when boats are approaching it close-hauled. The last paragraph of rule 20.1 affects the hailing boat only when the hailed boat can fetch the windward end of the committee boat. The hailing boat’s hail will be valid if the hailed boat will need to tack off after finishing.
Room to Tack at a Finishing Mark
Finishing line
Thetis Iphigenia Daffodil Iris
So Daffodil is entitled to hail Iris, because Iris cannot fetch the mark either. Iphigenia on the other hand is not entitled to hail Thetis, because Thetis can fetch the mark, and the fact that she will not fetch it until after finishing is not relevant. (In addition, the definition Fetching speaks only of being able to pass the mark, and makes no reference to its anchor chain, which is, by definition, not part of the mark. Presumably, if a boat cannot avoid hitting the anchor chain, she cannot be said to be able to pass to windward of the mark itself.)
1 It is perhaps a pity that that statement should be so far in the rule book from the rule affected RYA The Racing Rules Explained 101
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