Technically, there was contact, so someone broke a rule. A piece of equipment, even when not in normal position, is always part of a boat.
Technically, yes. The equipment and crew count in terms of making contact.
The sticky part is the question of where the boats were (to determine overlap). If your hull or equipment (in normal position) did not overlap his hull or equipment (in normal position), then you were clear astern and were not the ROW boat. See the RRS definitions.
Again, correct. Overlap is defined in terms of hull and equipment in normal position. I think there is a good argument that a line trailing in the water is not "in normal position".
The next place to go is, you hit part of the other boat when you were clear astern. Technically, you broke a rule, and were not right-of-way. However, since it might be argued that this was no fault of your own (he was dragging the line), you would not be penalized.
Yes and no. RRS 14 requires that all boats avoid contact if reasonably possible. I think there is a good argument that the astern boat could not reasonably avoid contact if the line were submerged and not visible. "No fault of your own" is not part of the rules.
Technically, I think the astern boat did not keep clear (under RRS 12) as there was contact (although it could be argued that the ahead boat did not need to take avoiding action), but I doubt most protest committees would penalize her.
Working through the logic above, you can see that if the line hits the mark, that is definitely a foul.
I agree with this analysis.
Intentionally dragging a line in an attempt to "draw a foul" is skirting the boundary of "fair play" and may be considered a breach of RRS 2.
Regards,
Eric
