I watched the video. IMHO, rule <%= rule_link('18.4) %> does not apply here because its application includes the phrase, "When an inside overlapped right-of-way boat must gybe at a mark to sail her propter course,..." and from the directions the boats are sailing (notice how long the first two boats stayed on starboard tack), a gybe was not necessary to sail her proper course.
I also disagree (I think) with the mark boat's comment that this was "team racing." It may have been something akin to match racing if the other boat was her most significant competitor when compared to the other boats racing, but it was only "team racing" if, say, the third place boat was on the same team as the first boat to round, which seems unlikely.
Simply put, the second boat owed the first boat mark-room under rule 18.2(a) and (b) and was was obligated to keep clear of the first boat under rule 11. She seems to have fulfilled her responsibilities under both rules 11 and 18. The first boat was obligated under rule 15 to initially give room to the second boat when the overlap was established and then under rule 16.1 to give the second boat room to keep clear when she altered course between the windward and offset marks. It appears as if she met her requirements under both rules.

 This was not a gate; just two marks that each have a required side and a zone. So this is R 18.2(b) and inside overlapped boat is entitled to mark room which was given - and R 11, W must keep clear. When L (as ROW) altered course to luff, room was given so R 16.1 was not broken.

Proper course  and R17 would only apply if L created an overlap from astern - there is no evidence of this, so no requirement for L to not sail above her proper course

My take - no rule was broken.

John

Read the last sentence of the rule -  Rule 18.4 does not apply at a gate mark. Rule 18.4 applies at marks that boats must round to port, usually when the next leg is a downwind leg.

Specifically, if an inside overlapped boat is entitled to mark-room and is sailing to a downwind course, she must gybe promptly to sail her proper course unless it is unsafe to do so.

18.4 applies at any mark at which a boats proper course is to gybe. 

It looks like 18.4 may not apply in the video however the question was about 18.4 and 11 together.

The notes at the beginning of Section A say:-

 SECTION A RIGHT OF WAY A boat has right of way over another boat when the other boat is required to keep clear of her. However, some rules in Sections B, C and D limit the actions of a right-of-way boat. 

18.4 is a rule where the actions of a right-of-way boat are limited. So the inside ROW boat must until she gybes, sail no farther from the mark than needed to sail her proper course AND the keep clear boat must keep clear no matter how far beyond her proper course the ROW boat sails before gybing. 

I generally agree with Clark and Rick. 18.2 applies between the boats, and 30 is both inside (mark-room) and leeward (ROW) boat. Rule 17 does not apply, and at the offset, neither does 18.3.

The only questions I had in this situation are:

The test for the latter is "if she is protested" whether "the protest committee finds that there was a reasonable chance of her tactics benefiting her final ranking in the event."

Edit to add: I think 396 may have kept clear but it's a tough angle. I'd want to hear testimony, and I don't really think that's the question we're trying to get at here anyway.

If I might digress a little, what is 18.4 there for? In general a ROW boat can sail a give way boat to the next country if she so desires. Why is a gybe mark an exception? I'm not well versed on the history of the rules. 

Rule 18.4 promotes smoother mark roundings by discouraging boats from forcing unnecessary maneuvers, such as continuing on a reach and obstructing others from rounding efficiently. The key conditions are that 1) Rule 18.4 applies only when the mark is to be left to port and not at a gate mark, and 2) the inside boat is entitled to mark-room under Rule 18.2.

No rule was broken

John.   Unless I’ve been missing something 18.4 applies at marks to be left to starboard as well.  

Rick,  Thanks for contributing to the discussion! Your input will make our Rules Roundtable at my Club this week more interesting. I’ve already told the skippers that if we took this to a hearing, I couldn’t find any broken rules based on the video alone. I wasn’t there, and the video shows they didn’t properly start the protest process. Without following the correct steps, the protest would be invalid. But they still want to 'review' the incident. I will let everyone know how it goes.

The title of this thread poses a question and describes the mark at which to ask it. The subsequent discussion seems to muddy the waters about what type of mark is in question and what rules apply at it.

The video makes it clear that there is a windward mark and an offset mark that are being rounded to port. Neither is a gybe mark (as would be used for a port triangle course) or a gate mark (typically used for a leeward rounding). RRS 18.4 does not apply at this offset mark because the boats do not have to gybe to sail their proper course as evidenced by the video that shows only one of the six boats executed a gybe and that was well after she had rounded the mark.

The only question I see here is whether RRS 11 is prioritized over the definition of mark room. The way I see it, boat number 30 is sailing well outside of the room to which see is entitled at the offset mark, evidenced by the fact that a boat clear astern is able to sail between her and the mark. So, my question is whether 30 is allowed to use RRS 11 tactically against 396 while breaking the rule defined in mark room?

I also question why the RC is using an offset mark with only six boats, but that's a race management question for another thread.

Hi Peter.  The leeward boat in this incident is the Right of Way boat entitled to sail wherever they like so long they are not encumbered by RRS 17 and thus compelled to not sail above their proper course. 

Boat 30’s mark room ended when it had been given.  That is basically when their stern passes the mark.  They are the ROW boat throughout and the windward boat must keep clear. 

I’m not sure exactly why they would sail the course they did.  Maybe they need the blue boat and the viper to finish ahead of them in this race to win the season championship.  Maybe it’s a team race as suggested in the video.  It doesn’t really matter.  They’re entitled to do as they wish. 

> So, my question is whether 30 is allowed to use RRS 11 tactically against 396

Hasn't Richard Jones dealt with this by quoting the preamble? RRS 11 always applies as a section A rule, but as one of the rules in one of sections B, C or D, RRS 18 limits what the ROW boat can do. So it seems to me 30 can use RRS11 tactically provided she does not exceed the limitations placed on her by RRS 18 when it applies. 

I suppose some would say that means B, C, D take priority, but to my mind that's unsafe thinking. Considering limitations as per the language in the preamble to my mind promotes a clearer understanding. 

Rick,
You seem to be implying that the windward mark is the only mark where mark room needs to be given. I believe that the offset mark is the next mark of the course and that the two zones in fact overlap. So if I am wrong in that observation and 30 has taken 396 up and out of the first zone and not entered the second zone I would agree that she has the right to do so. However, I think that the boats are in both zones simultaneously (the marks having been set too close together) and 30 is sailing outside of the room to which she is entitled for the offset mark.

Rick,
I like what you elude to in your comment about why 30 would sail the course she did. If you take the offset mark out of the picture I agree that 30 can do what she did without breaking any rules. She would do it for just that reason. If 30 and 396 finish one/two then their season scores would be tied and 396 wins the tiebreaker. If 30 lets another boat or two get ahead of them, then she has a chance to put a boat between her and 396 and wins the series outright. Good plan.

No Harm - no foul - but I have to say that those 2 J105 should have a boot to the nuts for sailing like a couple of blind squirrels - damn that hurt my eyes.

Peter.  You’re absolutely correct about both marks having their own zones.  It’s good practice to not let them overlap but it doesn’t really change the process too much.  Once mark room has been given on the windward mark that set of rights and obligations go away with respect to the two boats. 

It’s unlikely but not impossible I suppose for one boat to be the inside boat at the windward mark and for the second boat to be inside at the offset.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen.  

If the inside/leeward boat is entitled to sail above their proper course there is nothing to prevent them from doing so.  

A boat may sail outside the room to which she is entitled.  There is no rule that prevents that.  The only issue is that she is not exonerated for breaking RRS 10,11,12,13, 16 if she is sailing outside her mark room. 

After loosing a bit of speed endeavouring to fetch the mark, this is precisely what I would do to get back up to speed without loosing position. Nice move. No rules broken.

After a good night's sleep and another look and read I see that I was distracted by the red herring that 18.4 was a governing rule and didn't pay the proper attention to the very beginning of the video clip. Had the video started a few seconds earlier it may have been more apparent that 30 tacked into a leeward position (outside the zone) with no limitation to sail her proper course.

This is the key point here. Had she obtained her leeward overlap from clear astern she would carry that limitation all the way to the leeward mark if the overlap was not broken in some manner.

John, Good luck with your round table discussion Wednesday night. #30 needs to buy a round if they indeed executed that maneuver to win the season series.

A couple of observations about the discussion so far:

I think the audio is a little misleading, as Clark has observed. The mark boat operator's comment that "that's team racing" is likely an editorial comment, rather than a statement of fact, but if it weren't, the whole discussion would be moot, because there is no RRS 18.4 in team racing (It's deleted in D1.1(c), to permit one of the most common team race tactics, the "mark trap"). What's more, except in a team race, when a boat interferes with another boat's sailing the course to make that boat's score worse, she has to be doing so to make her own score in a race or series better - Niko's reference to Case 78 is germane here. If this happens in a fleet race and #30 can't convince the PC that she had a reason to do it that had to do with improving her own standing in the race or series, she might be found to be breaking rule 2 or even 69.

I agree with Peter that 18.4 does't apply here because it isn't clear that anyone must gybe to sail her proper course, but he wonders whether rule 11 permits #30 to break rule 18.4 by sailing outside the mark-room to which she's entitled. I would argue that's a misunderstanding of how the rules work; #30 can't break 18.4 because it doesn't apply, and at no time does #30 lose her rights under rule 11. She wouldn't even if 18.4 did apply, though they would be limited (only under those very specific circumstances that she must gybe to sail her proper course).

John, I agree with your (and others') overall conclusion that everyone met their obligations here, and no rules were broken, but I must respectfully submit that your assertion below is mistaken, and the mistake comes from adding words to the rule that aren't there, which is never a good idea.
"Rule 18.4 applies at marks that boats must round to port, usually when the next leg is a downwind leg.

Specifically, if an inside overlapped boat is entitled to mark-room and is sailing to a downwind course, she must gybe promptly to sail her proper course unless it is unsafe to do so." 

1) As Rick has pointed out, the application of Rule 18.4 isn't limited to marks to be rounded to port, and
2) while the language of the rule doesn't prevent it, in roughly 35 years of judging (and over 60 years of racing), I've never seen 18.4 applied to a boat about to begin a downwind leg. That's probably because right of way boats are usually given wide latitude in determining what their proper course is (the leeward mark or gate would have to be way left of a direct downwind bearing before you could even think about making the case that remaining on starboard gybe wasn't a proper course and in this case, as several others have noted, it's not at all clear that the mark is that far left, or even left of downwind at all).

In my experience, where 18.4 is usually applied is approaching a single leeward mark or a gybe mark (where there's much more certainty about what boats' proper courses are), and to answer Jim's "why's it there?" question, I would argue that it's there to prevent inside overlapped right of way boats from taking keep clear boats that must give them mark-room off the race course, as in the aforementioned classic team racing mark trap. The reason the rules writers wanted to avoid this situation in a fleet race (again, just my opinion) is that as John notes, it leads to boats making dramatic maneuvers at crowded mark roundings, which can be unseamanlike and can make the mark rounding a less predictable and more dangerous place for other boats - remember that boats headed into a gybe or leeward mark rounding tend to be busy gybing and/or taking a spinnaker down. (This is less of a concern in a team race, where a-there are usually fewer boats on the race course, and b-everyone expects to see a mark trap if one is both possible and profitable for the team that executes it).

I believe there is a case reflecting that room did not include room to jibe at an offset mark, can't remember the number.  The initially ahead boat wound up outside and wanted to jibe set I believe, the newly inside overlapped boat wanted to bear away. The result was that the jibe was not part of mark room, at least in the previous quad. 

Craig, I can't recall a case, but that situation would turn on the argument that the gybe was not 'necessary to sail the course'. That requirement has been deleted in th 2025 rules.

I would have thought it was wrong to ask “which rule has priority”.  I think all the rules apply all the time unless some rule says they are turned off.  If you think of the case where a leeward overtaking boat luffs a windward boat and goes above her proper course along with the windward boat not responding to the luff, resulting in contact, we might ask what rule has priority here 11 for the luffing boat or 17 for the windward boat.  The answer of course is neither has priority and both boats are penalized.  In most of these two rule cases, one boat is exonerated for her breach in rule 43 but not all the time.