<sorry, didn't get the quoting right... this was in reply to Eric's insurance company rationality post>
It may be that some carriers understand maritime law and will give some weight to the protest... but I have never seen that. I have seen ODNR officers explicitly tell two parties that his report based on state law was all that was relevant in an incident report (they agreed who was at fault, the officer just happened to walk by as they were pulling their damaged boats on the beach). I have had insurance companies require a police/sheriff report prior to paying damages.

BTW, I believe I read somewhere that a recent change was passed such that COLREGS do not apply between racing boats. Unfortunately, I doubt that all state and local laws follow the same policy.