It’s good to see the rules analyzed and debated. I live in WAFI/PAFI retiree heaven. Other than the licensed fishing guides no one has ever heard of the COLREGS. To keep things simple, they appear to have adopted only 2 rules. They are based on a combination of ignorance and fear. These apply both inland and outside the demarcation line.
Rule # 1: Don’t get too close to anything big enough to crush you. (Sailboaters love to push their luck with this one.)
Rule #2: If you pretend you don’t see them they’ll stay out of your way.
In this case it should be an easy matter for the sailboat to slack her sails off, spill out some wind and let the other vessel pass. Then tighten up and tack behind the overtaking vessel.
If it is a narrow channel the courts have decided in the past that a vessel being overtaken is “maintaining course and speed” if she is following the channel through a turn and staying on her side.
Since both vessels had a “heated exchange” after the incident shame on both of them for not recognizing a developing situation and clearing their intentions with each other beforehand. A simple call from the sailboat to the dinner boat saying “Hi… I’m running out of water here and need to tack. Could you plan to pass astern of me?”.
Lots of people say the VHF should not be used to avoid accidents because of the few times confusion over who is talking to who, but that line of thought leaves out the millions of times when the VHF has allowed two vessels to avoid a dangerous situation because they talked.
The rules of the road don’t really prevent accidents. Common sense prevents accidents. The rules are mostly for assigning blame after an accident.
You do that for long and you lose steerage. It is not always easy to do and some boats react very differently than others to maneuvers like this. If you have a high strung race boat with foils that stall out at low speeds, one result is you can entirely lose steerage and end up doing an uncommanded 180 or 360.
This is the mirror image of a WAFI not having any idea what a direct reversing diesel is and why that might be important
I am of the opinion that the dinner boat captain should have known better. You have to give way for sailing vessels [under sail] regardless. To expect the sailboat to maintain course and speed just because you decide to overtake him is wishful thinking. He should have been able to predict he has to tack upwind and not into the shoal water. A vhf conversation before the incident rather than after would have been more prudent.
I beg to differ. Most likely the dinner cuise boat most likely had them as a vessel allowed to carry passengers. He was overtaking the sailing vessel. The sailing vessel should assume they are being overtaken if unsure. The stand on vessel shall keep her course and speed unless she feels that the give way vessel is not giving way. IMHO, the sailboat didnt know the guy was behind him and changed course (no other information to prove otherwise). The DCV should have probably called them before getting to close just so they both were on the same page.
“Give way” and “stand on” don’t apply to a sail vessel / power driven vessel interaction. The PDV is required to keep clear unless it’s in a narrow channel where the SV is required to not impede the PDV.
Rules 16 (Give-way) and 17 (Stand-on) apply to all vessels. But yes, the PDV is required to keep clear because of Rule 13 (Overtaking). Note requirement to keep clear is not because of rule 18 which instructs PDVs to keep clear of sailing vessels. If the Sailing vessel was overtaking PDV then the sailing vessel would have to keep clear.
It is quite possible that the sailing vessel didn’t see the boat that was overtaking them. If the sailing vessel were instead a power driven vessel, then that issue should have been resolved by the required warning signal. In the case between a PDV and SV, the warning signal is not required. Presumably because except when overtaking or in a narrow channel the SV always has right of way. There is no requirement to assume you are being overtaken. Although there is a requirement in the rules to assume you are overtaking if unsure.
But rule 18 specifically says, “Except where…rules 9, 10, and 13 otherwise require:” So wouldn’t stand on/give way apply? There wouldn’t be a vessel specific interaction given that it is overtaking.
