That's fine. I'll keep my own counsel (which is that it's a valid argument, but a difficult protest to win). I place much more faith in logical explanation than in ex cathedra assertion. Here is an example. Several years ago, when I was a judge-in-training, I had a question about the meaning of "room" as applied under then rule 18 (marks and obstructions). At a sailing conference, I individually asked two Senior Judges, one International Judge, and one International Umpire. One of them assumed that in the situation I described, that I was one of the skippers and simply told me "You're in the wrong". One said he didn't know, but that 90% of the time, boat "A" would lose the protest. The other two said A was wrong. When asked, not a single one of them could point me to a spot in the rule book to justify their assertions (as I didn't really want a ruling - I wanted to clarify what "room" meant). It took me some time, and several reads of the RRS, but I finally found the item I was looking for (in the rule 18 preamble). Then I was able to string all the pieces together to interpret the hypothetical incident.

I think that we often get a mindset of how the rules should work, and forget what they actually say. If a person makes a rule assertion and can't back it up with logical application of the rules as written, then I don't really care what their credentials are. I'll stick with what the rules say. I've had arguments with IJ's and IU's over the rules and I stick to my guns until they show me all the links from A to Z. I've won some (like the IJ who asserted that no contact = kept clear). I've lost some (although gaining a better understanding of the rules is really a win).

The end result is that I won't make a rules assertion unless I can back it up by pointing out the relevant rules and explaining how they string together. As a protest committee member, I will never vote to penalize a boat unless I can explain exactly what rule was broken and how.

Can you cite any Rule, or USS Appeal, or ISAF Case that states that rule 16.1 does not apply between boats overlapped on the same tack (i.e., subject to rule 11)? If you can, I'd love to know. If not, then I'll stick with the rule as written:

Sincerely,
Eric