Jake, to answer your question, it was a gate. Instructions were to round buoys to port, but for the gate, it was to the advantage to round to starboard. Also, I am not quite sure if they would have established an overlap. When we collided, I hit them directly beam on as I was about to round the gate to starboard. I was almost dead downwind at the time and it seemed as they were on a beam reach, so could and overlap be established?

After spending some time thinking it over though, I think I should not have only been focusing on the boat to leeward and my crew or I should have noticed the other boat approaching and tried to give them buoy room. The only problem is that had i given them buoy room at the time, I am not sure if the leeward boat would have had time to react to me swerving and I probably would have hit them.