I think you guys are tossing the baby out with the bathwater here by focusing on the rule and ignoring the race. Boats are allowed to defend their wind.. They CAN'T HIT the boat that is trying to pass to prove the point.

Wave is the ROW boat to Straycat.... Stray cat is trying to pass to windward. Wave is entitled to defend by coming up fast and hard to keep Straycat from trying the pass so close.. Sraycat has to INSTANTLY respond to Wave's luff and avoid her... Staycat could be made to go head to wind hard!. The limitation is that WAVE can't hit STRAYCAT in the hard luff to prove the point.

Stray cat has to pay attention to the ROW boat (Wave) and can't be asleep at the switch or purposely delay action. Wave can't tap Stray cat to prove the point... It's up to WAVE to decide if StrayCat failed to keep clear and throw the flag or not (Wave is over 20 feet). Forcing Stray cat to instantly go head to wind is not forcing them into an unseamanlike action. It would appear that Wave did not come up and hit Straycat.. or Straycat did an excellent job of keeping clear... But... only Wave knows if he wanted to come up a bit more. Straycats may know if Wave was demanding more up on Straycats part.

My point is ... the room and opportunity does not excuse the burdened boat from keeping a very sharp lookout when they put themselves in the position to be luffed and they can't be surprised at the hard luff and claim... no room and opportunity (using the rule as a weapon)

With respect to the actual collision.
Wave could say... They tried to luff head to wind to BOTH slow down and defend their position. ... Straycats prevented them from luffing head to wind and they broke off the luff to avoid hitting Straycats. Because they could not luff, they were unable to keep clear of Adrenaline. Their boat is not as maneuverable as others... They attempted to avoid the collision but the liability is Stray cats.

Without any testimony.... Who the hell knows. ... I suspect all of the sailors don't actually know exactly what happened and they were reacting based on their general understanding of the rules and their obligations. Now they are sorting through the rules after the fact and putting their reactions into their understanding and also actually reading the rule book to getting a better understanding.