Forum: Rule 18 and Room at the Mark
5 overlapped boats rounding a leeward mark
Michael Sporer
Nationality: United States
0
The video of the event shot from Green can be seen here: https://youtu.be/EcYC0ACgmBE
This is shot from a gopro with a very wide angle lense, the distances (depth wise) are much closer than they appear in the video.
The boats in the animated gif have a length of approximately 3x beam; the actual boats are 24' long and 4' wide so 6x beam.
Questions:
1. at position 1, when yellow enters the zone which boats are entitled to room?
2. As blue, green and red each enter the zone, while overlapped, they each establish inside rights on the boat immediately outside of them, right? or did they have it already from when yellow entered?
3. Yellow surges ahead inside the zone, to clear ahead, is yellow still obligated to give room to blue? Did yellow fail to give adequate room?
4. Yellow is the first boat to gybe onto port. Does yellow have any rights at all if the others are are starboard?
5. Did green have rights to go inside yellow? If so would green have fouled red by doing so?
5. when Green and Red made contact at position 2 was green giving red enough room?
Any other observations or advice?
Comments
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PS. Confirmed this is not subject to any PC/Appeal process.
Remember - mark room does not transfer any rights to a boat entitled to it. Having mark room allows a boat to sail to and around the mark and be exonerated for (almost, see 43.1(b)) any rule broken while doing so. Anything done outside of that is subject to the normal right of way rules and limitations.
Inside/Outside and entitlement to mark room are determined as the first of each pair of boats enters the zone, so:
When Green enters the zone she owes mark room to everyone except Yellow and Blue
When Red enters the zone she owes mark room only to Turquoise
As has been said, the mark-room determination is made between 2 boats .. BUT .. it often involves multiple boats to come to that determination.
In your scenario, Yellow enters the zone first. Therefore, your 1st round of analysis will determine mark-room involving Yellow and other boats. It will be Yellow v Blue/Green/Red/Turq individually.
Round 1: Yellow v B/G/R/T
(Also note that all the boats are approaching the mark, the inside boats are to leeward of the outside boats. The rules of part 2 coexist with Rule 18, therefore Rule 11 still applies as limited by Rule 18.4.)
Round 2: Blue v Green/Red/Turq as Blue enters the zone (it appears from the animation, that Red breaks her overlap with Turq, as Blue enters the zone .. so let's assume that as a fact)
The same process as above, you progress the scenario forward until the next boat reaches the zone. We will conclude that since Red broke her overlap with Turq as Blue entered the zone ...
So, all the above is to answer your Questions #1 and #2.
If we assume, that Red does not break overlap with Turq when Blue, Red and Green enter the zone, then Turq is owed room from everyone.
Turquoise has mark room rights over everybody throughout the rounding, regardless of whether her overlap is later broken or a new one is established.
(I really like question 2: "thinking cap" time!)
I'm not sure I see this the same way, especially watching the video from about 0:30 which looks to be around position 2 in the diagram (believe orange POV boat in the video = Green in the diagram).
Red has leeward ROW and looks to be trying to stay hot and set up for a wide-tight tactical rounding, which she's entitled to do. She's also giving mark-room to Turquoise as she's required to do. All of these would be consistent with Red's proper course so I don't think she breaks 18.4 unless she delays her gybe and sails Green past the mark.
When Red establishes her overlap it looks like there's there's plenty of room for Green to come up and keep clear. Doesn't look like Red really starts to luff until she's pretty well advanced on Green. Green doesn't appear to be looking at Red and never alters course in response to Red's luff. Green could also help avoid contact by trimming her main in. It doesn't look to me like Red breaks either 15 or 16.
Blue to windward gives plenty of room to both Green and Red.
So I think at position 2 Red breaks 14 and is exonerated as ROW. Green breaks 11 and 14 and on valid protest is DSQ.
But between positions 2 and 3 Red fails to give mark-room to Turquoise, so on valid protest DSQ Red there. I'd see that as a separate incident from Red vs. Green.
The video shows different amounts of room than the diagram, so I can see how your conclusions are different and are reasonable.
I disagree with your conclusions on Red and Turquoise. In the diagram it looks to me that Red has given Turquoise room to sail to the mark and around it. Turquoise is consistently astern of Red from Position 2 through 5 where she gains a small windward overlap and by then 18 would be off as mark room has been given.
So I updated the diagram below.
Very helpful to allow me to understand the situation and avoid this issue in the future.
So, in summary,
Here is my take on your questions:
1. at position 1, when yellow enters the zone which boats are entitled to room? All of them.
2. As blue, green and red each enter the zone, while overlapped, they each establish inside rights on the boat immediately outside of them, right? or did they have it already from when yellow entered? They did had it when Yellow entered the zone ("if boats are overlapped when the first of them reches the zone, the outside boat at that moment shall thereafter give the inside boat mark room").
3. Yellow surges ahead inside the zone, to clear ahead, is yellow still obligated to give room to blue? Yes, under Rule 18.2(c))(1). Did yellow fail to give adequate room? Yes. Case 95 says: When a boat is required to give another boat mark-room, the space she must give includes space for the other boat to comply with rule 31.
4. Yellow is the first boat to gybe onto port. Does yellow have any rights at all if the others are are starboard? No, she has to keep clear under Rule 10 und must give mark-room under Rule 18.2(b) to all other boats involved.
5. Did green have rights to go inside yellow? No. If so would green have fouled red by doing so? Yes.
5. when Green and Red made contact at position 2 was green giving red enough room? No. Because Green should have given Red enough room to enable her to give mark-room to Turquoise.