Before the applicable mark rounding rules were clear cut ..... now they are situationally dependent .... this makes them "fuzzy ... how many boats in a pinwheel do you need to deny an inside overlap/mark rounding room to a starboard tack boat?????

and lets think this through the next few steps when the starboard tack boat is denied "room" ....

They can head-up or foot-off ...

1) Head-up Scenerio: they head-up, accelerating into the port tack boats shreaming "STARBOARD" ... at some point they are no longer in the "zone" and the rules revert to simple port/starboard. Will the port tack boats anticipate this????

2)Footing Scenerio: the starboard boat "foots-off" possibly passing on the wrong side of the mark and heading straight into the boats rounding the mark into a head on collision.

What happens if the starboard boat has been on the starboard layline forever and the port tack boat only reached the port layline recently and tacked??? the starboard boat has had a inside overlap from the moment the port tack boat tacked onto the port layline ...

I have never been a fan of coming into the leeward mark on starboard where we only had to deal w/ "room to make a Tactical rounding" or "room to make a rounding in a seamanshiply manor" .... but this adds another whole layer of issues to mark rounding ....w/ NO safe options. It promotes head-on collisions, before it was mostly glancing side to side contact .... is this what we want?

On first analysis, IMHO this doesn't make mark roundings simpler or safer ... but adds complications and danger ....

Sail Flat, Sail Fast, Sail SAFE
HarryMurphey
H18MAG/P19MX