This has happened to me more times than I can count, and is a classic example of where using rules are not to anyone’s advantage tactically. Leeward boat has the rights to come up but they have the limits on providing time for the windward to maneuver and eventually some on proper course, but you do not want to have that be your only defense in a protest IMO.

Boats that pull this kind of tactic on the course are a danger, especially sloop vs spin. If they really want to protect their line they need to come up early letting you know that they will be doing so and you need choose another way around. This way nobody runs off the wrong way and lets the 4 boats behind you all in front of both of you. If the boat behind is overtaking rapidly, they should have just kept their best line and let them buy as they would only be in dirty air for a very short time and give up a lot less time than trying to round somebody up violently at the last minute.

You as uni are significantly limited boat handling wise, so being forced to reach is scary in any wind. In passing, you either want to go real high early so you can get by as you eventually did, or go low early. With the spin and a hull speed advantage, ducking will lose you very little ground. We had to do this several times to the P19 last weekend and there were a ton of H16s always in the way. Go low far enough that as soon as you hit their exhaust you can round up and maintain apparent and you can pop through a slower boat pretty quick.