Recently at a regatta, I was in a collision and am wondering who is to blame.

Approaching the downwind buoy I was on a starboard tack almost dead downwind and did not have room to pass the buoy due to the presence of another boat to leeward of me. I requested buoy room and they had not problem bearing off a bit to give me room. With about 7 feet to spare between myself and the buoy, and maybe 3 feet between myself and the boat to leeward, I attempted to round the buoy and was focusing on not colliding with this boat when another boat on a port tack came out of nowhere and cut in front of me unexpectedly. I was completely unaware of the presence of this boat until I heard a "watch!" from them and less than a second later I collided with their port hull.

Now, I feel that since they were on a port tack the should have given me room and passed astern of me, but they claim that they jibed just before the collision and put themselves on a starboard, in which case we would have both been and a starboard tack and they would have been to windward and had established an overlap, so I would have had to give them buoy room. The only problem with that is that had we both been on a starboard, and if I would have given them buoy room, I would have collided with the boat leeward of me.

What ended up happening was that they cut right in front of me and my boat rode up on top of their "brand-new" port crossbar causing damage to my starboard hull (a puncture) and a scrape/dnet on their crossbar. My question is that I am interested in knowing what others would have done in this situation, bearing in mind that I was completely unaware that this boat was anywhere in the vicinity of me becuase I was focusing on the leeward boat giving me buoy room.

-thank you for your time and patience. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />