A boat shall avoid contact with another boat if reasonably possible. However, a right-of-way boat, or one sailing within the room or mark-room to which she is entitled, need not act to avoid contact until it is clear that the other boat is not keeping clear or giving room či mark-room.
When a boat acquires right of way, she shall initially give the other boat room, to keep clear, unless she acquires right of way because of the other boat’s actions.
If a boat clear astern
becomes overlapped within two of her hull
lengths to leeward of a boat on the same
tack, she shall not sail above
her proper course , while they remain on the same tack and
overlapped within that distance, unless in doing so she promptly sails astern of the
other boat. This rule does not apply if the overlap begins while the windward boat is required by
rule 13 to
keep clear .