› Racing Rules Discussions › Finishing Mark 9/6/22 traffic jam at pin › Reply To: Finishing Mark 9/6/22 traffic jam at pin
Fortitude’s experience:
Approaching Finish line with finish mark to stbd, 3 boats in the Zone, Fortitude & Whitehawk on port jibe / inside overlap, Tuesday’s Witch stbd jibe / outside. We thought on Fortitude that all 3 boats were overlapped at the Zone circle, with WH ahead, F next, TW next (and gaining). As we approached the finish, Tuesday’s Witch hailed “Starboard,” then replied to Whitehawk’s “Room” with another “Starboard.” The situation developing looked to us on Fortitude like 1) Tuesday’s Witch thinks they have right of way, 2) they aren’t acknowledging their obligation to give inside boats room “when boats are required to leave a mark on the same side” (rule 18.1), and 3) three boats are converging on a collision course, there’s no time to debate. With Tuesday’s Witch refusing room to F & W, I chose to avoid collision and steered to stbd, passing outside of the finish line. Whitehawk was forced (by avoiding me) to hit the mark; both F & W had to re-round to finish. Definitely a protestable event, but Fortitude chose to follow Whitehawk’s lead, and decided not to protest.
In reviewing the rules the next day, I found Dave Perry’s book “Understanding the Racing Rules” (thru 2020 but nothing’s changed) had a helpful discussion of a similar situation, described in Part 2 Section C, When the outside boat is the Right of Way boat, page 173. “When the outside boat has the right of way, she only needs to give the inside boat mark-room (defined term), and no more space than that.” “Note that rules 18.2 (a) & (b) don’t shift the right of way from the outside / right of way (S) boat to the inside / keep-clear (P) boat. S has a ‘temporary obligation’ to give P mark-room.” Also on page 180, see discussion on the question “What happens when the boat ahead is on port tack approaching a downwind finish line with a boat on starboard tack right behind her, and the port tack boat will pass through the zone about 2 lengths from the finish line.” The gist is the same – starboard tack is the ROW boat, but she has an obligation to provide room at the mark (finish mark, or any mark of the course with a required side) to inside boats that have “earned” mark-room at the Zone circle.
If I had it to do over again… I’d see the situation developing sooner and start working it sooner. Bill C.