Boats A and B are sailing downwind on Port tack approaching A mark that is to be left to starboard.  They are very definitely overlapped and have been for some minutes.  Boat A is to Windward.

Boat C is ahead but has had a very sloppy rounding of the mark and has elected to tack onto port tack, and will now pass less than 1/2 boatlength to windward of the mark.

All boats are 37-40 foot cruiser racers.

The timing is such that all three boats will arrive at the mark at once.  

Clearly A and B must keep clear of C under rule 11.

Clearly A owes B mark room at the mark.  

However, B shapes up to pass behind C, where there is just enough room for them to cross their stern and still leave the mark to starboard.

There is definitely not room for both A and B to pass behind C and both leave the mark to starboard.

Take the mark away, and 19.2b means that B has to give A room to pass the same side of the obstruction (C) as her.  

However, if A enforces this, then she is not able to give B the mark room that she definitely owes her under rule 18.2a.  

What happened was that Boat A (us) saw a massive accident in the making and bailed out to windward.  But thinking about it afterwards I couldn't work out who would have won a protest if we'd insisted on our rights under 19.  So which would win out, our rights under 19, or theirs under 18?

But if I'd insisted on my rights under 19, would the reverse be true if B bailed out the wrong side of the mark?  

Interesting.  So you mean that just because I have the right to claim room under 19, it doesn't necessarily mean I should do?

But doesn't that cut the other way too?  After all, if he'd simply held his course to the mark and I'd bailed out and protested him,  (Which is what happened minus the protest - different classes) I don't see how he would win that protest.  As at that point he's broken 19.

So if I bail out and protest he gets flicked for 19, but if I take the room under 19 I will break 18.  Is that right?

 

If by 'insisted on my rights' you mean, after having luffed, you had protested B for breaking rule 19, provided you brought good evidence about time and space to show that B did not give room for you to pass between her and C, then you should expect B to be penalised.  As Gordon says, by luffing you certainly gave B the mark-room to which she was entitled.

 

If, on the other hand, B had given you room to pass astern of C and you had sailed within that room, then, as Gordon indicates in the bold paragraph above, rule 19 and 18 would apply one after the other.  Only after A had kept clear of or avoided contact with C would she be required to take action to give B the mark-room to which she was entitled by then luffing if necessary up to or past head to wind to allow B to sail back to windward of the mark and round it to starboard.

 

Gordon (tentatively):  how do you think this sits with the 'direct corridor' in Case 75?

 

If B had not given room and you had tried to foce in between B and C, with the consequent sounds of crunching fibreglass, then I'm still inclined to think that B had failed to give your rule 19 room, and probably, in addition broken rule 14 without exoneration.

From where I was sat it was the only option!  It was just thinking through arguably the most intense mark rounding I've ever been involved in (there were about 6 other boats around as well who came into play when we finally cleared C and turned back to the mark) that I wondered if B had actually met their obligations.  

That would go against my experience of protest rooms, especially when big boats are involved, where someone being scared enough to bail out of a hole that they have "rights" to sail through generally gets the benefit of the doubt that the hole wasn't big enough.

A sensible way round I would think, when the consequences of a 9 knot, 14 tonne T bone are a little more serious than trading paint in a laser!

C had a bad drop and had gone some way beyond the mark and was beating back up past it.  They'd been on that course for probably 30s.  Quite why they had decided on a course to only just fetch it on port tack I don't know.  So this situation was developing for at least 30s.

In that respect - take away the mark and this was a very simple 19 issue.  But put the mark back and I got a little confused.  

(Ceteris Paribus - i.e. both would claim that they the other broke 18/19 if one/both goes behind the boat beating). 

That sounds like good advice.  

I doubt I'll ever see that situation again, but I'll remember that!

The real world situation was also compounded by dropping kites in a fresh breeze, and the resultant less than perfect visibility forward, especially to leeward where the beating boat was coming from.  So I don't think either boat had fully appreciated quite how small the gap was going to be until it was too late to get over the top of the boat beating (which was also a faster boat - making that hard in any case).  Resulting in the bail out and a request for new pants...

 

While PEd's proposition is the fail safe one, from Boat B's point of view, I think it would be more than flesh and blood could stand not to go behind C and head for the mark.

 

In response to A's protest, I would expect B to give evidence that she gave some space between her and C and if A had poked her nose in she was ready to give more, therefore she did not fail to give A room.  She would say, no contact, no failure to give room.

 

The protest hearing would come down to the evidence of A and B about exactly how much space was between B and C and how far away from that space A was, and A, having admitted to being in need of changing trousers while luffing from ddw to htw, is not going to be in a good position to give convincing evidence about looking over his shoulder and assessing, to the foot, how far there was between B and C at various times.

We know that they know that we know that they know he's a spy. But we don't know if we know that they know that we know that they know that we know....

If there are no possible prompt seamanlike maneuvers that can get both boats behind PL and round the mark....

Thanks all for the contributions, it's been fascinating.  Glad I'm not alone in finding the situation slightly confusing!

Further thought. Is that meta-room?