PART 2 Tacking at a Windward Mark
A boat’s entitlement to room to tack at a mark depends on whether she is overlapped to windward of and inside the boat from which she needs mark-room. If she is overlapped in that way, she is entitled to room to tack, otherwise, she is not, as stated in the definition Mark-Room. So when a boat’s tack at a mark would otherwise break rule 13, and she is clear ahead of the boat from which she is entitled to room, her only safe course of action is to luff and slow to induce the other boat into an outside overlap in order to keep clear, at which point she will be entitled to room to tack, as discussed under rule 18.2(a)1
.
At a starboard-hand windward mark being approached on starboard tack, a boat clear ahead that tacks loses her clear-ahead status the moment she passed through head to wind, and is now the give-way boat under rule 13 and then 10. She has no protection under rule 15, since her own actions caused her loss of rights. It is for this reason that windward marks are best set to be rounded to port in fleet racing, to avoid incidents, but to starboard in match racing and team racing, to provoke incidents. When a boat tacks from clear ahead on port to starboard at a port-hand windward mark, her period of risk relative to a port-tack boat astern of her is the short time during which she is subject to rule 13 and then, once on a close-hauled course, the time needed to comply with rule 15.
How long does the obligation to give mark-room last?
Rule 18.2(c) gives situations (some of which already discussed) where an obligation on A to give mark-room to B does not end, for instance if A was overlapped outside B or clear astern of B at zone entry and A gets ahead but interferes with B’s rounding, or A gets in inside overlap in the zone.
Rule 18.2(d) then states three moments when rule 18.2(b) stops applying, which it must do at some time.
The usual way that an obligation to give mark-room ends is that mark-room has been given. That may mean that the inside boat or the boat clear ahead has, in the words of a former US case, ‘left the mark astern and it no longer has any effect on her course’. It may also mean that the outside boat or the boat clear astern is so far from the room-entitled boat that it would never be possible for mark-room not to be available to the room-entitled boat. When rule 18.2(b) has ended because a windward room-entitled boat has left the mark astern, and her entitlement to mark-room has ended, she must now keep clear of the leeward boat, even if the leeward boat luffs, and she will have lost the possibility of exoneration under rule 21(a) if she does not keep clear.
Rule 18.2(d) disapplies rule 18.2(b) when the boat entitled to mark-room tacks. At a windward mark, all of rule 18 will in any case be ‘switched off’ by the tack, because of rule 18.1(b). At a leeward mark, a boat clear ahead that tacks while rounding will also now lose her mark-room entitlement as well as her right of way as soon as she passes head to wind. If at a port-hand leeward mark she tacks to a fresh starboard-tack right of way she must do so compliance with rule 15 with reference to a port-tack boat astern, since she is no longer entitled to exoneration under rule 21.(a). If at a starboard-hand leeward mark she tacks unthinkingly to a port tack, rule 14 may be her only protection from a starboard-tack boat astern.
Leaving the zone is the least likely of all the criteria to apply, since it will be the first to happen only if, perhaps when astern of several other slower boats at a mark, she has to leave the zone to avoid them; or if she drifts out of the zone in a light wind and an adverse current before reaching the mark. Rule 18.2 will then begin afresh when the zone is entered again, based on overlaps or otherwise at that time.
Doubt over an overlap RYA 1992/9 explains the application of rule 18.2(e) to a protest committee.
When the protest committee is unsure about the facts, it is normally the protestee that gets the benefit of any doubt. However, rule 18.2(e) states that, in the special case of reasonable doubt that a boat obtained or broke an overlap in time, it shall be presumed that she did not, a presumption that may favour either protestee or protestor.
1 Fig 4, page 71 RYA The Racing Rules Explained 79
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