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Rule 16.1

Part 2 — When Boats Meet

Section B — General Limitations

16.1

Changing Course

When a right-of-way boat changes course, she shall give the other boat room to keep clear.

Definitions in Context

Keep Clear

A boat keeps clear of a right-of-way boat (a) if the right-of-way boat can sail her course with no need to take avoiding action and, (b) when the boats are overlapped, if the right-of-way boat can also change course in both directions without immediately making contact.

Related Cases

A starboard-tack boat that tacks after a port-tack boat has borne away to go astern of her does not necessarily break a rule.

When, after having been clear astern, a boat becomes overlapped to leeward within two of her hull lengths of the other boat, the windward boat must keep clear, but the leeward boat must initially give the windward boat room to keep clear and must not sail above her proper course. The proper course of the windward boat is not relevant.

Before her starting signal, a leeward boat does not break a rule by sailing a course higher than the windward boat’s course.

When, because of a difference of opinion about a leeward boat’s proper course, two boats on the same tack converge, the windward boat must keep clear. Two boats on the same leg sailing near one another may have different proper courses.

After an inside overlapped windward boat has been given mark-room, rule 18 no longer applies, but rule 11 continues to apply. The inside windward boat must keep clear of the outside leeward boat, and the leeward boat may luff provided that she gives the windward boat room to keep clear.

A right-of-way boat need not act to avoid a collision until it is clear that the other boat is not keeping clear. However, if the right-of-way boat could then have avoided the collision and the collision resulted in damage, she must be penalized for breaking rule 14.

Rule 16.2

In addition, on a beat to windward when a port-tack boat is keeping clear by sailing to pass to leeward of a starboard-tack boat, the starboard-tack boat shall...

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