If two boats are on the same tack, the one sailing close-hauled has always right of way over the one running!
Blue has right of way.

At position 1, blue is leeward boat. At position 2, neither is leeward, Rule 14 applies to both.

All comments assume from the image the orientation of the wind is up.  Red's boom is over the port side of the boat, as is Blue's, so both are starboard tack boats.  The wind is coming from behind Red making it the windward boat.  The wind is coming from ahead of the Blue boat making it the leeward boat.  Rule 11 applies and the Red boat is DSQ.  Assuming there was no evidence given in the protest that encumbers Blue with taking evasive action Rule 14 would not apply.

Surely it is a simple case that windward keeps clear (R11) and the red boat is to windward.  Running by the lee is irrelevant.

Am I right in thinking at position 1 neither of them are clear astern and both on the same tack so must be overlapped. 

Up until just before position 2, red is on Blues windward side and Blue is on Reds Leeward. Thus Red is the windward boat. 

At the point where Blue crosses Reds bow and becomes both Leeward and Windward at the same time I have no idea but surely Red should have been keeping clear of Blue up until that point- Rule 11

I believe I've seen this before. My understanding is as Angelo and John say, there is no leeward boat, therefore neither boat has ROW. That being the case only RRS 14 applies, both boats are required to avoid contact if reasonably possible, and in the event of a collision presumably both boats should be penalised.

Jim re: “there is no leeward boat, therefore neither boat has ROW. That being the case only RRS 14 applies, both boats are required to avoid contact if reasonably possible”

Jim’s synopsis above is correct. 

Angelo, your earlier post says " Red’s, sailing by the Lee, her leeward side is toward is toward the top of the page."  Surely that is not true! Red's windward side is towards the top of the page.

What about this situation 

Wow, a lot of wrong answers here.  John, Angelo and Jim are correct.  This is a well-known quirk in the rules that comes up in every advanced seminar.  I only say this to emphasize that the other answers are incorrect. 

Stewart, recheck the definition of leeward and windward: A boat's leeward side is the side that is or, when she is head to wind, was away from the wind.  However, when sailing by the lee or directly downwind, her leeward side is the side on which her mainsail lies.  The other side is her windward side.  When two boats on the same tack overlap, the one on the leeward side of the other is the leeward boat.  The other is the windward boat.

And don't call me Shirley.

This is actually quite complicated.  For example, I think it is quite clear in position 2 that Red is on Blue's windward side.  However, is Blue on Red's windward or leeward side?  There is no definition of where the dividing line is between the two sides of the boat.  Is it the centerline of the boat and the extensions?  Is it the actual side of the boat and, if so, how would transoms, prams, and catamarans be handled?

Because of how the definitions are written we also have to understand the notion of who the "other boat" is.  There are two places this comes into play, being on the other boat's leeward side and the other boat is windward.  To me this means the boat you are not on.  I.e. to Blue, the 'other boat' is Red and visa-versa.  As long as applying the definition from both perspectives gives the same answer, all is good.  So now look at the OP situation from each boat's perspective.  Sitting on Red, I am not on the leeward side of the other boat, so I am not the leeward boat.  Sitting on Blue, I can't tell which side of Red I am on, windward or leeward.

Most people would say if I am not leeward, I must be windward and, therefore, a keep clear boat under rule 11.  However, this is not how the rules are written.  Until you know who the leeward boat is, you can't have an 'other boat' being the windward boat.  I grant you, this is what I would call 'lawyer logic'.  The opposite is not necessarily true, i.e. not being leeward does not necessarily make me windward.

Consider the same situation a little differently, this eliminates the question of which side of Red Blue is on.

This makes it a little clearer (well sort of).  Sitting on Blue, Red is the 'other boat' and I am on their windward side, so I am not a leeward boat.  Sitting on Red, I am not on the leeward side of Blue.  So neither boat is a leeward boat and, as a result, I can't know who the windward boat is and who is required to keep clear.

Match racing call B10 (attached) provides some insight into how this might be judged.

Now, consider the case when the boats are on the other side of one another and the contact is between the booms of the two boats.

Applying the definition of leeward, while sitting on Yellow and the other boat is Blue, Yellow concludes that they are the leeward boat as they are on the leeward side of the other boat.  Sitting on Blue, they conclude that they are the leeward boat as they are on the leeward side of the other boat.  Both boats think they are ROW as a result.

Here is another interesting case to consider.  Yellow very slowly gains an overlap on Blue and neither boat changes course.  After a period of time (enough to turn off rule 15 if Yellow becomes ROW in your analysis) the spinnaker of Yellow makes contact with the backstay of Blue.  The boats are clearly overlapped by definition, even though the hulls are not overlapped.  Is Yellow windward or leeward of Blue?

I would be inclined to see this is not a simple leeward windward situation as there is a collision implied and the judgment would be the same as Collregs who has taken action to avoid collision blue changed course between 1 and 2 and as a direct result assumed an intersect course red had to change course in response to blue to avoid collision red took action to avoid blue took action which caused simple responsibility to act to avoid so in this event even though red was give way vessel they should be exhonourated based on the need to avoid collision and blue should be dsq 

As drawn I would say that Yellow on Blue's port transom when the spinnaker overlap occurs is to leeward of Blue. If Yellow was on Blue's starboard transom I'd say Yellow is to windward. If Yellow was exactly directly astern I'm not sure how I'd go. Probably by "last point of certainty" - from which direction did Yellow get to directly astern?

In general on the original post, I think if neither boat can establish herself as ROW then they default to RRS 14 and avoiding contact. A general rule they taught us in the Navy is that turning to port in a crossing situation (which this is at position 1) is seldom the best choice. In the original drawing Blue would have been better off holding course, pinching or tacking and Red would have done better to turn to starboard rather than port. Hails and communication between the boats might also have been reasonable  actions that could have helped avoid contact.

William - IRPCAS (Colregs) does not apply with regards to the right of way between boats racing, the boats have agreed to use the RRS instead, so you can't fall back to that as a way to resolve this situation.  I'm not sure how you concluded that Blue should be DSQ.  Both boats were changing course between positions 1 and 2.  What rules applied and which did they break?

 14 AVOIDING CONTACT 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 or mark-room.
  16.1 When a right-of-way boat changes course, she shall give the other boat room to keep clear.
 43.1 (b) When a boat is sailing within the room or mark-room to which she is entitled and, as a consequence of an incident with a boat required to give her that room or mark-room, she breaks a rule of Section A of Part 2, rule 15, 16, or 31, she is exonerated for her breach. 

Tim - After a lot (and I mean a lot) of discussion by a group of experienced umpires, one solution that we came up with (and the one I like the best) is that we know the boats are overlapped but we cannot determine who is windward or leeward so we cannot determine who is ROW under rule 11.  Using the last point of certainty, we know that Yellow was clear astern at some point in time before the overlap was established and therefore continues to be the keep clear boat until we can actually determine who is windward or leeward and we can apply rule 11.  This is in keeping with MR Call B10.

John, that answer works for me as well, both from an umpire’s and a sailor’s perspective. I think most sailors would assume the boat ahead is ROW until the other boat gets a hook.

William - But I don't think you have really answered the question.  Yes, rule 14 applies to both boats.  Given the second part of the rule, how are you determining whether one of the boats was ROW and thus not required to act until it was clear the other boat was not keeping clear?  Rule 16 is only a limitation on what the ROW boat can do and you have the same problem, who is ROW?  43.1(b) is about exoneration and you have to find that a boat broke one of the rules listed before this applies.

At point 1 there is an overlap and red is the only windward boat and must keep clear. Both boats then changed direction and must give each other room to keep clear if rights change. Red only established its dubious claim to leeward boat right of way when its bow swung to the right of blue, at the point that this happened it did not allow blue room to keep clear. Red should be disqualified.

Stephen - IMHO the problem with your analysis is that you have to have a leeward boat to have a windward boat.  That is, a boat has to be on the leeward side of the other boat before the other boat can be the windward boat.  As neither boat meets the definition of being the leeward boat, you cannot have a windward boat.

The rule 16 limits on giving room when changing course only apply to a ROW boat.  If the ROW changes then the obligations of the new ROW are given in rule 16. But I don't think either of that happens here.

 Rule 16 limits ROW boat Which is clearly the blue boat under rule 11 on same tack overlapped. sometimes the simplest answer is clearly correct as i see in this case here.

Stephen, I would point out that, under the RRS definition, the boats in the original drawing are overlapped the entire time. They’re on the same tack and neither is clear astern of the other at any point.

Under that definition, if each boat is clear ahead of the other boat they’re overlapped, even if lines drawn perpendicular to their bows and sterns never intersect the other boat.

John C is on it. 

The only rule left in Part 2 A & B is rule 14. 

John and Tim
I agree they are at all times overlapped. But at position 1 red is the windward boat and must keep clear up to about half a boat length from blue. At that point it ceases being  windward and becomes leeward,  gaining rights. However at the point rights are gained it is too close to blue to allow blue to keep clear.
If the picture were drawn slightly different so that red become leeward boat sooner and was thus able to give blue room to keep clear  after gaining row then Angelo is probably right.

"The only rule left in Part 2 A & B is rule 14. "

Given the original scenario, which boat(s) break rule 14?

Both,

Red testified that she headed up as far as she could before the real risk of an unintended gybe.

What prevented Red from doing an intentional gybe? Or Blue from tacking? Or either boat from turning to starboard rather than port?

The instances of this happening seem to result from the boat which is sailing by-the-lee having engaged in "carving" the waves downwind. 
Cat-rigged dinghy sailors involved in this activity are fully engaged in boat control and can easily lose sight of boats to leeward.
Ergo, the by-the-lee boat should necessarily be suspected of alteration of course in a manner unpredictable by the boat sailing to windward.
A violation of 16.1 should be investigated.
The one exception I have seen was a case where the incident occurred at the leeward mark and the lower boat had just rounded and tacked in front of the running boat.

I think that a new Rule 11.2 would cover this growing problem:
RRS 11.2 "A boat sailing by-the-lee shall keep clear of a boat sailing a higher point of sail on the same tack."

I expect I'll get shot down for this simplistic approach.  Rule 11 says "a windward boat shall keep clear of a leeward boat".  From a bird's eye view, the red boat is to windward of the blue boat.  A feather blowing in the wind will reach the red boat before reaching the blue boat. That makes the red boat, in fact, to windward of the blue boat. And it is true no matter which side of each boat is windward and leeward side. And since she was obviously to windward at position 1, she should be keeping clear from much earlier.

Phillip your suggestion, "A boat sailing by the lee shall keep clear of a boat sailing a higher point of sail on the same tack." would remove the twilight zone where neither boat is ROW.  As Ang and John C pointed out, without a ROW boat, 16.1 will not apply. Your suggestion would make the boat sailing by the lee keep clear and therefore the other boat is ROW.

Many ILCA sailors feel sailing by the lee is fast downwind, even without carving waves.  My experience on the water is the boat closer to the windward mark keeps clear while boats are on the same tack even if one is sailing by the lee. I have not yet seen boats make contact in this situation.  

One of the rules of Part A is almost always on. One exception is when rules 21 or 22 applies between two boats.  And the other exception is the quirk we have been discussing today. It would be nice to eliminate the quirk.

The thing is, though, in practice its not a problem. As pointed out above in position one and before Blue has ROW and Red must keep clear of blue. At some point between positions 1 and 2 when the boats are close together it transitions so that Blue is no longer ROW and thus neither boat is ROW. 
But, I suggest, what actually changes is that instead of Red being required to keep clear of Blue and avoid a collision (11 and 14),  Red is now only required to avoid a collision with Blue (14) which is something of a distinction without a difference. At no point does Red have any entitlement to room.
Similarly for Blue her requirements change from "Must act to avoid a collision when it becomes clear Red is not keeping clear" to "Must act to avoid a collision". If they nevertheless contrive to collide it seems to me that Red is definitely penalised, and most likely Blue too. 

All these interpretations that use the definitions to establish which boat is "windward" of the other, are making what is a simple reality, embroiled in legalities versus practicalities. We perhaps need to step back and look at the reasons that boats upwind of another have traditionally been burdened. To clean up this to avoid ambiguities defaulting to R14, which is a default obligation anyway, we ought to reword rules to avoid confusion and make it clear, soon enough to contact: e.g.
- Rule 11 when two boats are on the same tack, and overlapped, a windward boat shall keep clear of a leeward boat. If when they become overlapped, one is sailing off the wind, and the other is on the wind, the boat off the wind will keep clear.
- Rule 12 when boats are on the same tack and not overlapped, a boat clear astern shall keep clear of a boat clear ahead. If while they are on the same tack, one is sailing off the wind, and the other is on the wind, the boat off the wind will keep clear.

Job done. 
- 

I use this example in many of my rules teaching sessions to get participants in to reading the definitions and applying them. 

@Tim, that's not the role of the PC/umpire.  Whilst it initially seems odd, we're not here to look at fairness or what seems right from a simple perspective - we have to apply the rules, as defined and as written.  Thus the definitions are critical in understanding the scenario.  (The only rule we apply for 'fairness' is rule 2).  And yes, sometimes, the outcome of an unbiassed and accurate interpretation of the rules can seem to all, PC included, to not give and outcome that feels fair.  A typical example is an incident that perhaps ought to be punished but which is ruled invalid as proper procedure for protesting hasn't been followed.  But the rules and their interpretation are the only reliable thing we have - the rest is opinion and different notions of fairness.

Russell Beale, you quoted my post but I hadn't mentioned the role of the PC/Umpire. I was only suggesting that RRS 11 & 12 have a minor addition to eliminate any doubt about which boat is the windward boat in this scenario.  

@Tim, I guess my point was in response to you saying
" are making what is a simple reality, embroiled in legalities versus practicalities"

We have to look at the legalities (according to the RRS) and not make assumptions about a 'simple reality' or 'practicality'.  As this discussion highlights, there is no simple reality in this situation as there is no leeward boat.

As in engineering, I submit that perfection in rule writing is achieved when there is nothing left to take away. One may add clauses almost indefinitely to answer increasingly arcane hypotheticals like this one, but IMHO the question should be whether the extra complication adds clarity on the water. In this case I suggest there's no issue and no advantage in making a change. 90% of competitors will be quite unaware that for a few seconds neither boat has right of way, but more importantly as I outlined above the basic obligations of each boat don't change. Right through the whole scenario red is required to avoid blue, and if red doesn't avoid blue then blue is required to attempt to prevent a collision. 

Russell, I understand the interdependence and use of the definitions and rules. That's not in question,  nor am I assuming anything. My use of the word "legalities" vs practicalities is because in this scenario, the strict interpretation of the relevant definitions in conjunction with the rules, produces a situation, where other than applying R14, neither boat clearly knows who is the burdened boat until they're almost at a point of no return . Therefore, this isn't a good situation, and it could be resolved with MINOR clarifications in R11 and 12. Where I see the issue, is that the reading of a definition for the "windward" boat, is being applied in a context of any normal understanding of when a boat is TO WINDWARD, or better stated, is UPWIND of another.

In this scenario there's little doubt that the red boat has been  UPWIND and TO WINDWARD of blue, up to their present overlap, hence is the burdened boat. We shouldn't have to get to the point where they overlap as drawn and risk contact, where neither gives in. The context of the definitions of which is the windward side of a boat, which is leeward is clearly misapplied if it produces a scenario that neither is apparently burdened (other than by R14). This is not an assumption: the practicality is that red has approached from an UPWIND/WINDWARD position, and up until one uses the definition of leeward and windward, has been the keep clear boat.

Here's the problem: "when two boats on the same tack overlap, the one on the leeward side of the other is the leeward boat. The other is the windward boat". There's nothing wrong with the definition when boats on the same tack are going in the same, or close to the same, direction. It further gets muddy due to the connection with the definition of Clear astern, Clear Ahead and Overlap. Neither of these do us any favours for clarity in the scenario posted in this thread of two boats on the same tack going in opposite directions. 

Hopefully this forum can be used to suggest changes which clarify and avoid conflicting rules and definitions.

But where's the conflict? Let's add some intermediate boats to the original diagram.

Right up to and beyond position 1B, with the boats barely a boat length apart, the situation is unchanged. Red is Leeward boat, and is required to keep clear. RRS11 and RRS14 apply to her. By position 1B it is clearly evident that Red is going to collide with Blue.  Only at position 1C, with a collision certain, does Blue lose ROW (and even then you could argue there's more of blue to leeward of red than to windward!), and at that point Red still has the requirement to avoid blue. That never changes. There is no point in the entire diagram from start to finish that red is not burdened to miss blue, and red cannot be in the slightest doubt that's the case.

 It's perhaps instructive to note that practically speaking nothing much changes if red were on port tack.  And I'm not sure you can sensibly leave RRS14 out of consideration. Isn't it one of the most important rules in the book? Arguably most of the others are only there to make it easier for the boats to comply with RRS14.

At position 2, there is a contact between Red and Blue. This means that the two boats come into physical proximity with each other. The specific outcome of this contact depends on various factors, such as the wind conditions, the skill level of the sailors, and online games their ability to maneuver their boats.

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