This question comes up every so often; here are prior discussions:

https://www.racingrulesofsailing.org/posts/214-what-about-this?forum_id=1

https://www.racingrulesofsailing.org/posts/807-how-to-request-us-sailing-or-world-sailing-to-issue-guidance?forum_id=1

Long story short, it comes down to:

Please forgive the focus below on ILCAs/Lasers, but hopefully it's helpful since they're popular boats and often have their best VMG by the lee, making the situation above fairly common, especially at windward marks.

If a ILCA sailing downwind turns into an ILCA sailing upwind, that triggers 16.1. Penalize downwind boat. (That's not in this diagram, but including it here for completeness.)

If a ILCA sailing downwind holds course and contacts an ILCA sailing upwind, penalize downwind boat per 14.a. Speaking as a practitioner (active ILCA racer), not as a judge: to me, "reasonably possible" is the key phrase here. Here's why.

For ILCA going downwind, it's more "reasonably possible" to avoid a collision with another boat. We regularly turn through 20 to 40 degrees in response to waves (whether surfing, avoiding, or sailing through) or puffs or wind shadows. We often do these turns every few seconds downwind, and it's something that a "competent but not expert" (definition of seamanlike) ILCA sailor can do.

Conversely, for an ILCA going upwind, it's less "reasonably possible" to turn to avoid another boat. Tacking isn't an option since it takes too long and your target area, once on port, as seen by the downwind boat, converts from maybe five feet wide (hull plus sailor) to 14 feet wide. So, bearing away is your only option. To do that, you have to dramatically drop the mainsheet, which could be caught around your feet, or the boom can drag in the water if it's heavy wind. Sounds simple to fix, but mistakes happen when you're maxing out your heart rate hiking in a race. So, these problems happen to "competent but not expert" ILCA sailors all the time.

So, it's reasonably possible for an ILCA sailing downwind to avoid another boat. It's much less reasonably possible for an ILCA sailing upwind to do so. For this reason, if I were on a protest committee for ILCAs, I'd put the onus of RRS 14.a compliance on the boat sailing downwind.

In summary: in either situation, turning or holding course, the downwind by the lee boat has to avoid the upwind boat.

Happy to hear from others more trained in the rules on this analysis... 

My reason for posting this topic was to confirm my understanding that after gybing first, the penalty turn was completed after Yellow passed HTW, and that reaching a close-hauled course was not part of a penalty turn requirement.

In various discussion with other sailors, some quoted R 13 and others related to R 20 and room to avoid as evidence suggesting a tack included passing HTW until close hauled.

While there are cases for the R 20 situation, there is no case such as the diagram in my opening post to allow a consistent and reliable decision by a protest committee.

Is it possible to either have a Q&A rapid response, or a new case added to provide an authoritative finding to formally document this conclusion?

Thanks for the input.

John

Which will convince me better that you were anxious.

"I hailed Starboard. They ignored me. I hailed louder again shouting you need to tack too. They ignored me. I altered course"

"I wasn't sure if they saw me and I was anxious so I altered course"

Can you expand on this?

John, I am glad that the WASZP rules are working in practice.  I think that the wingfoils will go a different direction, with little or no limitations, at least in part because they are always in the standing position.  I think that should be up to the fleet decide and adopt in their class rules so we shall see as the class matures.