Each week, Bateaux.com offers you a question about the boat license. To validate your skills or even to discover unexplored areas. This week, we tackle the question of priorities.
Who is pivotal between these 2 sailboats?
In boating, whether you are sailing or motoring, there are rules of the road. In open water (i.e. outside the channels), a sailboat has a preference over a motorboat. But what about when 2 sailboats are facing each other?
In this case, a sailboat on starboard tack is considered to have priority over a sailboat on port tack. We are on starboard tack when we receive the wind from starboard. This is the case of our situation on the picture. We are on starboard tack while the sailboat to leeward is on port tack (it receives the wind on port). It is therefore up to him to divert to let us pass. This is what happened shortly after the photo and we greeted him politely when he cut our way through our transom.
It is important to know these rules of priority, not to insult those who do not respect them, but to ensure better safety for all. If in this situation, we had changed course and sailed behind the leeward boat, the latter would have done the same maneuver, risking a collision between the two of us..
