Rule 16: Changing Course
Rule 16 of the Racing Rules of Sailing 2025-2028 limits the boat with rights. When a right-of-way boat changes course, she has to give the other boat room to keep clear. She can still luff or bear away; she cannot turn so that the other boat has nowhere to go.
Rule 16.1 is what makes a luff legal or not. A leeward boat can head up toward a windward boat slowly enough that the windward boat can respond. Luff hard into a boat with no room to respond and the leeward boat breaks rule 16.1, right of way or not.
It holds at marks too. A right-of-way boat that changes course into a boat with no room to respond breaks rule 16.1, even when that boat took room at the mark she was not owed.
Rule 16.2 covers the port and starboard duck on a beat. Once a port-tack boat is keeping clear by passing astern of a starboard-tack boat, starboard may not change course so that port immediately has to change course again to stay clear.
Sail it
No drill on the Rules Lab picker stages rule 16. Open the Rules Lab and pick any right-of-way encounter: rule 16 limits the boat with rights in every one.
Questions
Can a right-of-way boat change course?
Yes. Rule 16.1 only asks her to give the other boat room to keep clear when she does. A steady luff is legal; a sudden turn into a boat with no room to respond is not.
What is hunting in sailboat racing?
A starboard-tack boat bearing away after a port-tacker who is already ducking her stern, so that port has to change course again. On a beat to windward, that breaks rule 16.2.
Does rule 16 apply at the leeward mark?
Yes. A right-of-way boat that shuts the door on a boat already committed inside her has to give that boat room to keep clear, even if the inside boat was not owed mark-room.
Paraphrased from rule 16 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.