Trapezing and Windward Boat

Originally posted by Brass

Originally posted by Brass

I'ts an artifact of the RRS that they only contemplate boats rotating around the yaw axis (changing course).  A boat that rotates radically around the roll axis, doesn't get an obligation to give room to keep clear.  That's just the way it is.

And there is no 'if reasonably possible' in the right of way rules.

In the case of a boat capsizing 'under your nose', and you hit it:

*  it might not be reasonably possible for your to avoid contact, so you do not break rule 14, but

*  If you hit her before the masthead is in the water, you break rule 12, boat clear astern keep clear,

*  if you hit here after her masthead is in the water, then 'reasonably possible' kicks in via rule 22.

The rules don't look at 'the point where she losses control', which would be endlessly disputable, but at the much clearer point where 'her masthead is in the water'.

In either case where boats are on the same tack and overlapped or not, the boat clear ahead, or overlapped to leeward is the right of way boat and is an obstruction, all the time.
Thanks for the excellent clarification. Having pored over the rules a little after writing my post I was gravitating towards the same conclusion regarding the capsizing boat. Of course in this instance it hits the windward boat long before the mast ever hits the water so the course change is perhaps the only possible defence for W to avoid penalty.

I guess I was just trying to find something in the rules to deny the inevitable conclusion that in order to avoid this situation on a start line you would need to maintain a mast height's separation from the boat to leeward, in the case of a 29er this being around 6m