Rule 14: Avoiding Contact
Rule 14 of the Racing Rules of Sailing 2025-2028 applies to every boat, rights or not: avoid contact with another boat if it is reasonably possible. A right-of-way boat does not have to act until it is clear the other boat is not keeping clear, but from then on she has to try.
The right-of-way rules say who keeps clear. Rule 14 is the backstop for when that fails. A boat sailing within room or mark-room she is owed works the same way: she can hold her course until it is clear the other boat is not giving it, then she must try to avoid the hit.
Reasonably possible is the test, so a hearing asks what each boat could have done once the situation was clear. Holding your course to prove a point and then hitting can leave both boats at fault: one for not keeping clear, one under rule 14. The right-of-way boat is exonerated for that (rule 43.1(c)) unless the contact causes damage or injury, so the penalty usually falls on the give-way boat alone.
Right of way is not a license to collide. Hail early, and when it is clear the other boat is not going to keep clear, change course in time to miss her.
Sail it
No Rules Lab drill stages rule 14 on its own. Pick any encounter in the Rules Lab and sail it without touching the other boat.
Questions
Does the right-of-way boat have to avoid a collision?
Yes, once it is clear the other boat is not keeping clear. Until then she can hold her course, but from that point rule 14 asks her to avoid contact if she reasonably can.
Can both boats be at fault for one collision?
Yes. The give-way boat breaks the rule she failed to keep, rule 10 or 11 for example, and the right-of-way boat breaks rule 14 as well if she could reasonably have avoided the contact. She is exonerated under rule 43.1(c) unless the contact causes damage or injury; the give-way boat still owes her penalty either way.
What does reasonably possible mean in rule 14?
Doing what a boat could reasonably have done once the situation was clear, given her speed, the space and the time she had. A boat left with no time to react has not broken rule 14.
Paraphrased from rule 14 of the Racing Rules of Sailing 2025-2028, not quoted. The rule text is World Sailing's, and the rulebook is what a protest hearing reads.