Here's the situation:

In a race, I've rounded the leward mark and I'm heading to weather with an A cat very close to leward. There's a small (~12') aluminum boat ahead of me that is motoring about dead upwind. On my point of sail I'll pass ~10' off his transom. I hold my course.

When I'm very close, I realize the boat has lines in the water - the poles are laying down in the boat, which is why I couldn't see them. I can't bear off because of the A-Cat, and it's too late to tack. My crew and I are on the wire, and there's not enough time to pull the board.

So I hold my course and pass ~10' behind it. I snag a couple of lines, and one of the poles goes overboard. There's an man and four young kids in the boat. The man immediatly starts yelling obsenities at me, saying things like "Get back here ***hole, you owe me a new ****ing fishing pole". I continue on, finish the race and head in to the beach.

Shortly after I reach the beach, the boat comes in to shore, the man gets out, walks up to me and starts yelling in my face about how I nearly killed his kids and owe him $250 to replace his pole. I stay calm, but can't get in a word edgewise. He's yelling obsenities very loud, and there's many other racers on the beach looking on. After about 5 minutes of this, three other racers step in and basically tell the guy he's right and I owe him for his gear. One offers to pay him for it if I won't.

At this point I feel like I don't have a choice, and my crew writes him a check for $250 (I left my checkbook at home), although I seriously doubt his rig was worth more than $30. He's still pissed off and demands that I apologize to his kids, which I refuse to do.

After he left, there was no shortage of other folks who witnessed the confrontation who told me I was in the right and they never would have paid. Unfortunately, no one I knew was present and no one else was willing to stick up for me when it would have made a difference.

So, what would you have done if you were in my place?

What would you have done if you were a fellow racer on the beach?