/ 
Every week, Bateaux.com presents you with a question about your boating license. It's all about validating your skills, or even discovering unexplored areas. This week, we tackle the question of priorities.
Who's the pivot between these 2 yachts?
Whether you're sailing or motoring, there are rules of the road. In open water (i.e. outside the channel), a sailboat has the right of way over a motorboat. But what happens when 2 sailboats face each other?
In this case, a sailboat on starboard tack is considered to be pivoted on a sailboat on port tack. You're on starboard tack when the wind is on your starboard side. This is the case for our situation in the photo. We're on starboard tack, while the sailboat to leeward is on port tack (receiving the wind on its port side). So it's up to him to reroute to let us pass. This is what happened shortly after the photo was taken, and we greeted him politely when he cut across our transom.
It's important to know these priority rules, not to insult those who don't respect them, but to ensure better safety for all. If, in this situation, we had changed course and gone downwind to pass behind the leeward sailboat, the latter would have carried out the same maneuver, risking a collision between the two of us...
