PART 2
So there is no automatic exoneration if the non-tacking boat, although fetching the mark, luffs more than is necessary for room to round it – her luff must comply with rules 15 and 16.1, as WS 93 (fig 1) makes clear.
Blue tacks in the zone to a track far enough ahead and to windward of Yellow for Yellow to have mark-room at the mark, but Yellow, becoming overlapped to leeward, then luffs more than she needs just to pass the mark. Yellow breaks rules 15 and 16.1, by denying Blue room to keep clear, and Blue is exonerated, at the time by rule 21(a), since Blue was required to give her room under rules 15 and 16.1 when she luffed; and in any protest hearing under rule by rule 64.1(a) for breaking rule 11. Since Blue complied with rule 18.3, the situation was then as if it had happened away from any mark. L
WS 93 3 3 2 2
1
1
fig 1
may also have broken rule 17, whose application is unaffected by any part of rule 18, if her premature luff took her above a proper course at that point.
Four final points on rule 18.3. Firstly, a reminder that the tack by the tacking boat must be done sufficiently far from the other boat to comply with rules 13 and 15. If it does not, it is hardly necessary to have to decide whether rule 18.3 has been broken as well.
Secondly, the rule is broken when the boat that tacked caused the non-tacking boat to sail above close-hauled. It is often the case that when a starboard-tack boat that is overstanding on the layline sees a port-tack boat sailing to tack in the zone to leeward of her course, she will bear away to deter that tack and to drive the other boat to pass astern before tacking. If the other boat nevertheless tacks to what is, or what becomes, a leeward overlap, the non-tacking boat may then need to luff above close-hauled in order to keep clear of the tacking boat as the latter also now luffs to round the mark. It can be argued that the tacking boat did not cause her to sail above close-hauled – rather, she caused herself to do it. As long as her luff above close-hauled was seamanlike, which normally it would be, she has no grounds for complaint under any of rules 15 and 16.1 – nor, it appears, under rule 18.3.
Thirdly, the rule applies only at port-hand windward marks. The main differences at a starboard-hand windward mark will be that the starboard-tack boat will have the option of delaying her tack in order to compel the port- tack boat on the layline to tack (or duck) and lose places – which is why starboard-hand windward marks are not encouraged; and that if the starboard tacker tacks to leeward of the port-tacker and then luffs to fetch the mark, no rule is broken if a seamanlike luff by the leeward boat causes the windward boat to sail above close-hauled to keep clear, since that is an issue only when rule 18.3 applies at port-hand marks. The need for the tacker to have complied with rules 13 and 15 is unchanged.
Fourthly, it often happens, when a windshift favours a port-tack approach to a port-hand windward mark, that boat A to leeward tacks to starboard inside the zone and then meets boat B, which then tacks in the zone to leeward or ahead of boat A. Because boat A was never on starboard tack outside the zone, rule 18.3 does not apply, but, once again, the need for the tacker to have complied with rules 13 and 15 is unchanged, and no rule is broken if a seamanlike luff by the leeward boat causes the windward boat to sail above close-hauled to keep clear.
82 RYA The Racing Rules Explained
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