Rule 14 applies to every boat in every incident, right-of-way boat included. If you can reasonably avoid a collision you must, whatever the other boat is doing wrong.
Since 2025 it also covers contact you cause but are not part of: squeezing one boat into another, or pushing a boat onto the committee boat or a moored vessel, can break rule 14 even if your own hull never touches anything.
The right-of-way boat, and a boat sailing within the room or mark-room she is owed, does not have to act until it is clear that the other boat is not going to keep clear or give room. At that point she must try. A protest committee will ask when it became clear, and whether she then did what she reasonably could.
A right-of-way boat or one sailing within her entitled room that breaks rule 14 is exonerated if the contact causes no damage or injury (rule 43.1). The keep-clear boat is never protected that way.
Common situations
Port tack boat that will not get out of the way
Starboard sees port coming and hails. Port does not respond. Starboard does not have to bear away early, but once it is clear port will not keep clear she must try to avoid contact. If she holds course to "make a point" and there is damage, she can be disqualified alongside port.
Damage and serious damage
If contact causes injury or serious damage, a penalty turn is not enough: the boat at fault must retire (rule 44.1). Whether damage is serious is the protest committee's judgement; it looks at things like the cost and difficulty of repair and the effect on the boat's performance or safety, not at scratched paint.
Common misreadings
"I had right of way, so I cannot be penalized"
A right-of-way boat that could have avoided damaging contact and did not is penalized under rule 14. The exoneration in rule 43.1(c) only covers contact without damage or injury.
Changed in 2025
2025 adds the duties not to cause contact between other boats and not to cause a boat to hit an object that should be avoided.