The contradictory part of the rules is often A has boats to windward and a legal inside overlap established by B seconds before arriving at the mark doesn't allow A time or opportunity to give B room.
Good point. There was a protest at our last state titles because the boat on the inside wasn't given mark-room. The protest was not upheld because there was another boat outside both of them who was deemed by the protest committee to be the one that caused the problem. Whether that boat had the opportunity or not to give mark-room for both boats inside would have been the thing to determine- and a difficult thing to prove either way I would say.
That also raises the definition of overlap which says two boats that would not normally be overlapped, become overlapped when a boat between them overlaps both. So when there are three boats strung out but overlapping in a line, the first and last boat count as overlapped. Strangely this doesn't seem to extend to 4 or more boats in a line (this is what I mean by it getting complicated!).
"Mast abeam" - He he
