First, I don't care if he's the dali lhama,

If he cares what some nobody, talentless clown of a sailor calls him, thats his business. I'm sure he's a big boy and can take the "heat".

Second, when I say "I don't care what the rules say" I mean it in the context of the rest of my post.

"I don't care if the rule says you can do it, you left me no recourse and you caused me to flip, you did it on purpose and I think you're an a-hole on account of it."

Now I don't know whether this was the situation during the mentioned race, because I wasn't there. I'm speaking in generalities and probably took rhody's comment out of context, but I strongly disagree that causing your competitor to flip is within the bounds of good sportsmanship and the spirit of yacht racing. If it is, then I'm in the wrong sport and peace out. This aint no nascar.

I'll risk getting hurt and breaking my boat on account of my own actions, or even others' noviceness or mistakes. However, I'm not willing to go out there on a course where theres a headhunter that would, if given the opportunity, cause an accident in the name of competition and play it off when confronted "hey I did nothing wrong according to the rules". Maybe I'm just a big fat baby then.

Then again, the rules are supposedly written to prevent this sort of thing from happening.