You can't just toss the rules away "trying to be a nice guy"...this can create it's own dangers...people begin to expect that and then we no longer know in advance when the rules will apply and when people will be "nice".
How true that is! It can be disastrous to try to be "nice."
A long time ago when Rick and I were sailing a Hobie 18, we had a very bad incident. We were going to weather on starboard tack, heading out to the left side of the course after the start. We wanted to get over to the right side of the course, but we could not tack because there was another Hobie 18 to windward and behind. He had us pinned. So we bore off a little and did a deliberately slow tack to port to wait for him to go by and then headed down so we could go behind him.
Unfortunately, when he saw us tack, he decided to be a nice guy and go below us instead of holding his course. This resulted in a head-on collision that destroyed one of the bows of his brand new Hobie 18.
He confirmed afterward that he was just trying to be a "nice guy."
