Tricky...proper course question.

I don't know for sure but I would think the two-boat rule doesn't apply because the buoy is not a mark odf the course for the leeward boat. If so that leaves a straight windward / leedward situation & you just have to slow down, let him go through then you're clear to make your mark rounding.

Presumably its a Port rounding?

Question I would ask myself is: What would I have done if I had known at the time that B wasn't a mark of the course for the other boat?

Agree with Jim;

He has rights to sail his proper course; you have to live with the fact it takes you away from where you want to go.  I'm afraid you are in the wrong.

The problem is, I have little idea where he came from - he says he was ahead of me and had already rounded B, but I did not see him pass me, hence the confusion and my thinking he was rounding the mark like I was.  I certainly did not see him up to windward of me during my reach down from A.

Also, the course was such that if he had rounded B and then got blown back to leeward of it, the most efficient course for him would not have been to go anywhere near B - he had been sailing to leeward of me for some time before the mark rounding incident and because he was in a Vago compared to my Pico, he sailed through my lee.  When he did this he was certainly within two boat lengths of me, so I would be invoking:

Rule 17.1  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 overlapped within that distance, unless in doing so she promptly sails astern of the other boat.

What I would be asking him would be, why was he reaching down towards B - he must have sailed a good five boats lengths on that reach before showing any signs of heading up to tack - he only seemed to want to once he was in a position to stuff me at the mark, why did he not tack up and go behind me - a much more direct route to C than going out of his way towards B? and also, why did he not start sailing upwind as soon as he had recovered from his capsize?   Surely that would have been more representative of a 'proper course'?

Whatever the answers, I don't think he was entitled to  alter course as he did when he had been holding his course below me for sufficiently long that I actually believed it was his proper course.

I have to say that I tend to put a cynical interpretation on it - I had been leading the race for a long time and he had a lot to gain by stuffing me at the mark.

Hi 'winging it',

It may be that Rule 22.2 applies, depending on the circumstances:

Rule 22.2 - A boat shall not change course if her only purpose is to interfere with a boat making a penalty turn or one on another leg or lap of the course.

If the other boat had already rounded the mark, that you were heading for, then I think that it was then on a different leg, and therefore, should not have purposely interfered with you. There again, I may be wrong.

Ian  (Yorkshire Dales S.C.)

 

Edited by iansmithofotley