Part 2
WHEN BOATS MEET
time, the one on the other’s port side or the one astern shall keep clear.
SECTION B
GENERAL LIMITATIONS
14 AVOIDING CONTACT A boat shall avoid contact with another boat if reasonably possible. However, a right-of-way boat or one entitled to room or mark-room (a) (b) need not act to avoid contact until it is clear that the other boat is not keeping clear or giving room or mark-room, and shall be exonerated if she breaks this rule and the contact does not cause damage or injury.
15
ACQUIRING RIGHT OF WAY When a boat acquires right of way, she shall initially give the other boat room to keep clear, unless she acquires right of way because of the other boat’s actions.
16 16.1 16.2
CHANGING COURSE When a right-of-way boat changes course, she shall give the other boat room to keep clear. In addition, when after the starting signal a port-tack boat is keeping clear by sailing to pass astern of a starboard-tack boat, the starboard-tack boat shall not change course if as a result the port-tack boat would immediately need to change course to continue keeping clear. ON THE SAME TACK; PROPER COURSE If a boat clear astern becomes overlapped within two of her hull lengths to leeward of a boat on the same tack, she shall not sail above her proper course while they remain on the same tack and overlapped within that distance, unless in doing so she promptly sails astern of the other boat. This rule does not apply if the overlap begins while the windward boat is required by rule 13 to keep clear.
17
13