there is a bit more to it than that.
The boat needs to be given room to make the course change to avoid the luffing boat, you cannot just sling the tiller over !
Actually if the windward boat is correctly keeping clear, the leeward boat can just sling the tiller over. Check out your definition of "Keeping Clear"
"One boat keeps clear of another if the other can sail her course with no need to take avoiding action and whent he boats are overlapped on the same tack, if the leeward boat can change course in both directions without immediately making contact with the windward boat."
That doesn't mean the leeward boat can plow straight into the side of the windward boat.
Tiger Mike
Mike,
I was assumin (again as we don't have the whole picture) that the boats were close enough so that the leaward boat could not head-up or tack without the windward boat taking avoiding action.
In that case the windward boat should be protested for failing to keep clear. (read the definition quoted above - typed word for word from the rule book) Once the leeward boat goes past head to wind the windward/leeward rule switches off and it's an entirely different ball game though.
For a fun race I would have done exactly as Robi did. If I were fighting out a match racing worlds and I didn't have room to round up to windward without immediately hitting the windward boat I'd put up the red flag.
Tiger Mike
But you say
That doesn't mean the leeward boat can plow straight into the side of the windward boat.
So you cannot just sling the tiller over, UNLESS you are going to clear the other boat anyway.
You have to sail in such a was as the boat CAN keep clear, you can only protest (and win) if you can PROVE that you gave them time to react. In a laser, this is not very long, but in a cat it is longer as they take longer to turn.
You cannot put the tiller over at will and expect the boat to windward to keep clear, they have to have time to
react to the movement of the boat below, the windward boat can only react to a change of course, and so must be given time to do so.
