WHEN BOATS MEET

SECTION  B   - GENERAL LIMITATIONS

14  AVOIDING CONTACT

If reasonably possible, a boat shall

       (a) avoid contact with another boat,

       (b) not cause contact between boats, and

       (c) not cause contact between a boat and an object that should be avoided.

However, a right-of-way boat, or one sailing within the room or mark-room to which she is entitled, need not act to avoid contact until it is clear that the other boat is not keeping clear or giving room or mark-room.

15  ACQUIRING RIGHT OF WAY

When a boat acquires right of way, she shall initially give the other boat room, to keep clear, unless she acquires right of way because of the other boat’s actions.

16   CHANGING COURSE

16.1    When a right-of-way boat changes course, she shall give the other boat room, to keep clear.

16.2    In addition, on a beat to windward when a port-tack boat is keeping clear by sailing to pass to leeward of a starboard-tack, boat, the starboard-tack boat shall not bear away if as a result the port-tack boat must change course immediately to continue keeping clear.

17   ON THE SAME TACK; PROPER COURSE

If a boat clear astern becomes overlapped within two of her hull lengths to leeward of a boat on the same tack, she shall not sail above her proper course while they remain on the same tack and overlapped within that distance, unless in doing so she promptly sails astern of the other boat.