PART 2
If however, Blue does succeed in breaking the overlap before zone entry, she will benefit from the clear- ahead rights in the second sentence of rule 18.2(b).
The exemption from giving mark-room for late overlaps under rule 18.2(f) does not apply to outside overlaps from clear astern. If a boat becomes overlapped from clear astern outside another or others close to the zone, then even if she is now the right-of-way boat under rule 10 or 11, nothing removes the requirement to give room immediately under rule 15 and then mark-room at the zone to those now inside her, a fact she should take into account in establishing the overlap.
If it is the inside boat that reaches the zone first, the outside boat’s obligation to give mark-room begins at that moment, being at a time before the outside boat has reached the zone. If it is the outside boat that reaches the zone first, her obligation to give mark-room starts at that moment, which means that the inside boat’s mark-room entitlement starts outside the zone.
Let us consider mark-room for overlapped boats in more depth, when it is a give-way boat that is entitled to it.
First, it is ‘room to sail to the mark’ and ‘room to leave a mark on the required side’. We know that room is the space a boat needs in the existing conditions while manoeuvring promptly in a seamanlike way. The ‘prompt seamanlike manouevring’ will be applicable to the inside boat if the outside right-of-way boat, possibly having tried unsuccessfully to shake off the overlap before entering the zone, will now have to turn promptly for the mark to give the mark-room, to which the inside boat must respond. The space that then has to be given will then be conditions-dependent. The room to be given is room ‘to sail to the mark’. That room does not have to start to be given until the first boat enters the zone, but it must be given promptly, to enable the inside boat to change if necessary to a course taking her directly to the mark (or as close to it as the presence of other room-entitled boats permits). Without the entitlement for room to sail ‘to the mark’, an outside right-of-way boat could continue to manoeuvre against the inside boat as long as room was then given at the mark – if the overlap had not been shaken off inside the zone.
The course ‘to the mark’ is not one aimed directly at the mark, but to a position alongside the mark, so there is a smooth transition between the course to the mark and the rounding.
However, a boat’s entitlement to room to sail to the mark applies only when her proper course is to sail close to it – and the presence of a further boat overlapped inside her will mean this obligation does not apply to an outside boat of three or more overlapped boats: instead, an outside boat must give a middle boat the space she needs to give the inside boat the room to which she is entitled1
.
The obligation to give room to sail to the mark applies when the inside (or clear-ahead) boat’s proper course is to sail close to the mark. However, it is not an obligation to give room for a boat to sail a proper course to the mark.
Room to sail ‘to the mark’ is only room for seamanlike sailing, which if straight downwind may not be the inside boat’s best speed, especially if she is gennaker-rigged.
1 WS 114 RYA The Racing Rules Explained 73
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