- Abandon
- Clear Astern and Clear Ahead; Overlap
- Committee
- Conflict of Interest
- Continuing Obstruction
- Fetching
- Finish
- Keep Clear
- Leeward and Windward
- Mark
- Mark-Room
- Obstruction
- Party
- Postpone
- Proper Course
- Protest
- Racing
- Room
- Rule
- Sail the Course
- Start
- Support Person
- Tack, Starboard or Port
- Zone
Abandon
An abandoned race is cancelled as though it never happened. Nobody is scored in it, and it may be sailed again later. The race committee or the protest committee can abandon.
Halfway up the second beat the breeze dies and the committee shows N over H. The race does not count; you go ashore and wait.
Clear Astern and Clear Ahead; Overlap
Draw a line square across the boat ahead at the aftermost point of her hull or equipment in normal position (a boom out on a run counts; a crew member trailing a foot does not). If the other boat is entirely behind that line she is clear astern and the first boat is clear ahead. Otherwise they overlap. Two boats that do not overlap each other also overlap if a third boat between them overlaps both.
These terms always apply on the same tack. On opposite tacks they apply only when rule 18 applies between the boats, or when both are sailing more than 90 degrees from the true wind.
On a run, your bow reaches past the transom line of the boat ahead. You are now overlapped, and which boat is windward decides who keeps clear under rule 11.
Committee
Shorthand for the race committee, the protest committee or the technical committee, so the rules do not have to list all three every time.
Rule 60.1 says a committee may protest a boat: that covers all three.
Changed in 2025.
New definition in 2025.
Conflict of Interest
A person has a conflict of interest when they could gain or lose from a decision they help make, when they could reasonably appear to have a personal or financial interest affecting their impartiality, or when they have a close personal interest in the decision. Having a conflict does not automatically disqualify a judge; rule 63.3 sets out how it is handled.
The protest committee chair's daughter is sailing in the fleet. The chair declares it, and the parties can object.
Continuing Obstruction
An obstruction long enough that the boat with the shortest hull involved will pass alongside it for at least three of her own hull lengths. It depends on the size of the object relative to the boats, not on whether they are actually sailing along it yet. A vessel under way, a boat racing, and a race committee vessel that is also a mark are never continuing obstructions.
A 200-metre breakwater is a continuing obstruction to dinghies. A 12-metre committee boat at the finish of an Optimist race is not, because it is a mark.
Changed in 2025.
New definition in 2025.
Fetching
On your current tack, without tacking again, you would get past the mark on the correct side, going to windward of it. That is fetching. It is about being able to lay the mark, not about how close you are.
On a port-hand windward mark, a starboard boat that will clear the mark without another tack is fetching. A boat that will need to pinch and still miss it is not.
Finish
Your finish is the moment any part of the hull crosses the line from the course side, after your starting signal. It does not count as a finish if, after crossing, you take a penalty, go back to fix an error in sailing the course made at the line, or carry on sailing the course. You do not need to cross the line completely, and the sailing instructions may set the direction for crossing. Since 2025 a boat no longer needs to have started to finish.
Your bow crosses the line; that is your finishing time, even if the boat then drifts back across the line.
Changed in 2025.
A boat now finishes without needing to have started; the sentence about not crossing completely moved here from rule 28.
Keep Clear
Keeping clear has two parts. The right-of-way boat must be able to sail her course without having to take avoiding action. And when the boats overlap, she must also be able to turn either way without touching straight away.
You are windward boat, overlapped, a metre away. If leeward cannot luff even a few degrees without hitting you, you are not keeping clear, even though she is sailing straight.
Leeward and Windward
A boat's leeward side is the side away from the wind (or, if she is head to wind, the side that was). When sailing by the lee or dead downwind, the leeward side is the side the mainsail is on. The other side is windward. Of two overlapped boats on the same tack, the one on the other's leeward side is the leeward boat.
Two boats reaching side by side on starboard tack: the one nearer the direction the wind is blowing towards is leeward.
Mark
Three kinds of thing are marks: anything the sailing instructions tell you to leave on a particular side; a committee vessel with water all round it that forms an end of the starting or finishing line; and anything deliberately attached to one of those, such as a flag staff or a tethered buoy. The anchor line never is.
The flag staff on the committee boat is part of the mark; its anchor rode is not, so touching the rode is not a rule 31 breach.
Mark-Room
The space a boat needs to sail to the mark when her proper course is to sail close to it, to round or pass it on the required side, and then to leave it astern. It is built on room: a seamanlike rounding in the conditions, including space to obey the Part 2 rules and not touch the mark.
An inside boat owed mark-room at a leeward mark gets space to sail to the mark, round it and head up onto the next leg. She does not get space to sail a wide arc first.
Changed in 2025.
Shortened for 2025. The words "as necessary to sail the course" and the statement about room to tack were removed, and leaving the mark astern was added.
Obstruction
Something a boat could not pass without changing course substantially if she were sailing straight at it one hull length away; anything that can only be safely passed on one side; or an object, area or line that a rule (including the notice of race or sailing instructions) designates as one. A boat racing is an obstruction only to boats that must keep clear of her or, under rule 22, avoid her.
A moored yacht, a shoal you cannot sail over, and an exclusion zone around a shipping channel declared in the sailing instructions are all obstructions.
Changed in 2025.
Any rule, not only the sailing instructions, can now designate an obstruction.
Party
The people and boats who are parties to a hearing and get the rights in rule 63.1: the protestor and protestee; a boat asking for or being considered for redress, and a committee acting under rule 61.1; the body accused of the improper action in a redress hearing; a person accused of misconduct and the person presenting the allegation; and a support person, any boat they support, and the person presenting the allegation, in support-person hearings. The protest committee is never a party.
You request redress because the committee scored you OCS when you were not. You and the race committee are both parties.
Postpone
A postponed race is delayed before its scheduled start. It may start later or be abandoned.
AP goes up at 11:55 for a 12:00 start. The warning signal will come one minute after AP comes down.
Proper Course
The course you would choose to sail the course as quickly as possible if the other boat named in the rule were not there. It depends on the wind, waves, current and your boat. There is no proper course before your starting signal. Different boats can have different proper courses in the same situation.
On a run, the proper course for a planing dinghy may be to sail higher angles for speed; for a keelboat it may be close to dead downwind.
Protest
An allegation, made under rule 60 by a boat or a committee, that a boat broke a rule. Requests for redress and misconduct reports are not protests.
You write that Blue (USA 123) broke rule 10 at the first windward mark. That is a protest. Asking for your score to be fixed because the line was too short is a redress request.
Racing
Racing begins at your preparatory signal. It ends when you have finished and got clear of the finishing line and its marks, when you retire, or when the committee signals a general recall, a postponement or an abandonment.
You finish and hang around the committee boat's stern. Until you are clear of the line and its marks you are still racing and still bound by the Part 2 rules as a racing boat.
Room
The space a boat needs in the conditions at the time, including space to obey her Part 2 obligations and rule 31, while manoeuvring promptly and in a seamanlike way. More wind and waves mean more room; a crew that handles the boat badly does not get extra.
In 25 knots a keelboat gybing round a mark needs considerably more room than in 6.
Rule
The rules that govern an event: this rulebook (definitions, race signals, introduction, preambles and applicable appendices, but not the Basic Principles or the headings), World Sailing Regulations with rule status, the national authority's prescriptions (unless validly changed), class rules (including handicap system rules for rated boats), the notice of race, the sailing instructions, and any other document named as governing the event.
A breach of the sailing instructions is a breach of a rule and can be protested, unless the sailing instructions say it cannot.
Changed in 2025.
The definition now states that the Basic Principles are not rules.
Sail the Course
A boat sails the course when she starts, then a taut string following her track until she finishes passes every mark on the required side in the right order (starting marks included), touches each designated rounding mark, and passes through gates from the direction of the previous mark; and then she finishes. A mark that does not begin, bound or end the leg you are on has no required side.
A boat that passes the wrong side of the offset mark and does not go back fails the string test and is scored NSC.
Changed in 2025.
Starting and finishing became part of this definition in 2025, moved from rule 28.
Start
Two steps. At or after your starting signal, your whole hull must be on the pre-start side of the line (and if the I flag rule applies, you must have come round an end). Then any part of the hull crossing to the course side is your start.
You are a metre over at the gun. You dip back so your whole hull is behind the line, then cross again. You have now started (unless I, U or the black flag applies).
Support Person
Anyone who gives or may give physical or advisory support to a competitor (coaches, trainers, team managers, medical staff and similar), and any parent or guardian of a competitor.
A parent driving a RIB to bring water to a junior sailor is a support person and is bound by the rules and the event's support-boat regulations.
Tack, Starboard or Port
Starboard tack or port tack, named for the boat's windward side. Wind over the starboard side means starboard tack.
Sailing downwind with the boom out to port, your windward side is starboard, so you are on starboard tack.
Zone
The area within three hull lengths of the boat nearer the mark. A boat is in the zone when any part of her hull is. Appendix D (team racing) shrinks it to two hull lengths, Appendix E (radio sailing) widens it to four, and the kiteboarding appendix uses 30 metres; the notice of race or sailing instructions may also change it.
A 6-metre keelboat is in the zone 18 metres from the mark. If a 4-metre dinghy is nearer the mark, the zone between them is 12 metres.
Terms from the Introduction
A few more words have a fixed meaning set in the rulebook's Introduction rather than in the Definitions. They are not printed in italics.
| Boat | A sailboat and the crew on board that are subject to the rules. A cruising boat passing through the racing area is a vessel, not a boat. |
|---|---|
| Competitor | A person who races or intends to race in the event. |
| National authority | A World Sailing member national authority, such as US Sailing or the RYA. |
| Race committee | The committee appointed under rule 89.2(c), and anyone else doing a race committee job. |
| Racing rule | A rule in The Racing Rules of Sailing itself. |
| Technical committee | The committee appointed under rule 89.2(c) for inspection and measurement, and anyone doing that job. |
| Vessel | Any boat or ship, racing or not. |