Understanding the Racing Rules of Sailing

PART 2 , S E C T ION C : WHEN BOATS ME E T — RUL E 18 : MAR K- ROOM 187

reaching on starboard tack to leave the mark to port. A enters the zone clear ahead of B, so B must give A mark-roomunder rule 18.2(b)). A wants to gybe and begin sailing the downwind leg on port tack. She knows that she is not “protected” by rule 43.1(b) (Exoneration) if she gybes around the mark because she does not need to gybe to begin sailing the next leg. A sails high so that she would pass the mark about a length to windward of

it. When A gets to the point where her proper course on port tack would bring her close to the mark (within a couple of feet of it), she gybes to port tack. Because mark-roomincludes roomfor A “to sail to the mark”when her proper course is to sail close to it, A is sailing within the mark-room to which she is entitled, and A is exonerated by rule 43.1(b) if she breaks rule 10 (port/star- board); i.e., she is “protected” by rule 43.1(b). Furthermore, when A gybes, B becomes overlapped inside A and becomes required to also give A room to sail her proper course under rule 18.2(c)(2) until A has been given mark-room. However, if A had stayed on starboard tack and sailed past the point where

her proper course on port tackwould have brought her close to the mark (call it the “port layline” to the mark), she is no longer entitled to room to sail to the mark. While still on starboard tack A had been given room to leave the mark to port, and to bear away to the course needed to sail the coursewith no risk of touching the mark. Therefore A had been given mark-room, and rule 18 ceased to apply, meaning that if she gybed to port tack after that point, she would be required to keep clear of B under rule 10 (On Opposite Tacks).

Next, the question of how much room an outside boat must give to an inside boat depends on whether the outside boat is a “right-of-way” boat or a “keep- clear” boat.

WH E N T H E O U T S I D E B O AT I S T H E R I G H T- O F -WAY B O AT:

When the outside boat has the right-of-way, she only needs to give the inside boat mark-room, and no more space than that (see the discussion above). Note that rules 18.2(a) and 18.2(b) do not shift the right of way from the outside/ right-of-way boat to the inside/keep-clear boat. But clearly the obligation to give mark-roomconflicts with rule 10 (On Opposite Tacks) and rule 11 (On the Same Tack, Overlapped) in Section A. In other words, when a starboard-tack boat (S) and a port-tack boat (P), or a leeward boat (L) and a windward boat

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