PART 2
Retractable bowsprits for asymmetric spinnakers (gennakers) are increasing common. When are they ‘in normal position’? Match racing call A4 gives a general test: ‘Is this how the boat would be normally be sailed, in the absence of other boats?’ So an extended bowsprit will be in normal position prior to hoisting the spinnaker or after its removal, as long as it has not been extended prematurely or left in position too long. But its normal position in pre-start manoeuvres and when beating will be retracted.
In match racing, call L4 says that an observer or a cameraman (presumably perched on the pushpit) does not count for the purposes of overlaps (or contact), whereas a camera, bracket or antenna fixed to the boat is ‘equipment in normal position’. A flagstaff counts, the call says, but the flag on it does not. Note that the definition does not include the crew for the purposes of overlaps, presumably because the crew in normal position is unlikely to be ahead of the stem or abaft the transom. The line used to determine overlaps is sometimes called the ‘transom line’, but it is further outboard when the rudder is transom-hung. In this context, it is implicit that only equipment that is visible above the water line is relevant.
Having established tacks and overlaps, the three main right of way rules can be applied. Rule 10
ON OPPOSITE TACKS When boats are on opposite tacks, a port-tack boat shall keep clear of a starboard-tack boat.
Rule 11
ON THE SAME TACK, OVERLAPPED When boats are on the same tack and overlapped, a windward boat shall keep clear of a leeward boat.
Rule 12
ON THE SAME TACK, NOT OVERLAPPED When boats are on the same tack and not overlapped, a boat clear astern shall keep clear of a boat clear ahead.
Common to all of these is the defined term Keep Clear:
Definition Keep Clear A boat keeps clear of a right-of-way boat (a) if the right-of-way boat can sail her course with no need to take avoiding action and,
(b) when the boats are overlapped, if the right-of-way boat can also change course in both directions without immediately making contact.
Part (a) of the definition Keep clear applies to all three of rules 10, 11 and 12. Part (b) applies to rule 11, and to rule 10 when opposite-tack boats sailing downwind and are overlapped because the definition Overlap says so. The definition makes no reference to contact. The point at which a boat has not kept clear will be before there is contact, and so a collision is usually no more than evidence that one boat has already not kept clear of the other1
. Occasionally, there can be contact, despite which there is no failure to keep clear – for example, when a spinnaker, sheet or halyard unexpectedly flies free from its normal position on a close-hauled clear-ahead boat and touches a boat astern2
recovering from a capsize, is anchored or aground or is trying to help a person or vessel in danger, rule 23 suspends normal rights of way, replacing them with a requirement to avoid ‘if possible’, which it may not be.
. Similarly, when a boat is unable to avoid contact with a boat that is capsized,
1 RYA 2011/3: ‘The critical factor was not the contact, but the convergence of the courses and the closeness of the approach.’ So when in RYA 1999/5, concerning larger boats, a crew member of L reached out and touched the hull of W, that was evidence that W was so close as already
to have broken rule 11. 2 WS 77
38 RYA The Racing Rules Explained
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