PART 2


When the committee boat is surrounded by navigable water:- • It is an obstruction where room must be given under rule 19 until boats are approaching it to start • When boats are approaching it (and its anchor line) to start, until they have passed it neither rule 18 nor 19 applies, and so there is no right to room or mark-room at it. See the preamble to Section C.


• If boats are required by the sailing instructions to sail through what was the starting line during the race, often at the end of a lap, this becomes a gate, of which the committee boat is one mark, at which rule 18 applies


• If boats are not required to sail through the starting line during the race, but happen to do so or cannot avoid doing so, then the committee boat is an obstruction at which rule 19 applies


• If boats are prohibited from sailing through what will be the finishing line before finishing, then I do not think that the committee boat is a rule 18 mark, since the whole line including committee boat and pin buoy can be left to either side: instead, it can be a rule 19 obstruction


• When the committee boat forms one end of the finishing line, it is a mark to which rule 18 applies, and where there may be mark-room entitlements, as discussed under rule 18.


When the committee boat is not surrounded by navigable water, then it is no longer automatically a mark, because the definition Mark says so, despite the fact that the starting or finishing line projects from it. Rights to room will be decided at all times by rule 19. That includes when approaching the starting line to start, because the preamble to Section C switches off the rules of Section C then only when it is a mark that is being approached. Room will have to be given to an inside overlapped boat that is ‘barging’.


A committee boat may also be a starting or finishing mark because the sailing instructions say so (see rule L9.4). When the water around it ceases to be navigable on a falling tide, or if it was never navigable at all, then it remains a mark when it has a required side at the start or finish of the race, and during the race if applicable. When it is being approached to start, the preamble to Section C will still not operate, because, although it is a mark, it is not surrounded by navigable water. So which rule of Section C applies – rule 18 or rule 19? Rule 19.1(a) (see below) tells us that it is rule 18 that applies, because it is a mark with a required side, and it is mark-room rather than ordinary room that may have to be given, including mark-room for an inside overlapped boat that is ‘barging’. However, the committee boat now has a zone which will deprive a boat getting a late inside overlap from any entitlement to mark-room.


One boat racing may be an obstruction to another boat racing, but that in itself has no relevance in the rules. Although the general test for an obstruction refers to its effect on one boat only, the fact that an object (including another boat racing) may be an obstruction is significant only when it is being approached by two boats. Rule 19’s purpose is to secure safe navigation between two or more boats that approach an obstruction, by requiring one to give room to the other, so as to allow the other to avoid the obstruction. My experience is that protestors completing a protest form over an incident involving only two boats will sometimes get distracted into issues relating to obstructions when it is in fact a simple Part 2 of Section A rule matter.


It is usually clear whether a visible object is an obstruction. This is less certain when approaching or passing shallows. RYA 2011/1 says that an inside boat that reasonably believes that she is at an obstruction and acts accordingly is entitled to room from an outside boat. The inside boat is not required to endanger herself in order to claim her entitlement to room. If the outside boat disputes the inside boat’s entitlement to room, she must nevertheless give room, and then, if she wishes, protest. This case puts the passing of an obstruction under rule 19 and tacking at an obstruction under rule 20 on the same footing, which ensures safe navigation, although the right for room to tack in dubious situations is explicit in rule 20, but nowhere written in rule 19.


19.1 When Rule 19 Applies


Rule 19 applies between two boats at an obstruction except (a) when the obstruction is a mark the boats are required to leave on the same side, or (b) when rule 18 applies between the boats and the obstruction is another boat overlapped with each of them. However, at a continuing obstruction, rule 19 always applies and rule 18 does not.


90 RYA The Racing Rules Explained


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