Rule 18: Learn the 2025-2028 Racing Rules

The new 2025-2028 Racing Rules of Sailing go live on January 1, 2025. Don’t expect any earth-shattering changes, but the rulemakers have made a few tweaks to make the rules a bit clearer and more logical. Here’s a quick quiz about one such change from rules expert Dave Dellenbaugh.

For more on what’s different in the new rules, including an in-depth discussion of the situation below, check out Dave’s upcoming webinar series about the new 2025-2028 racing rules that starts on Monday, November 18.

Quiz Questions:
Two boats sailing downwind on port tack approach a single leeward mark that they must leave to port (see diagram). Boat X is clear ahead of Boat Z, but Boat Z enters the zone first as shown.
1) Under the 2021-2024 racing rules, which boat is entitled to mark-room?
2) Will this change under the new 2025-2028 racing rules? If so, how?

For a copy of the 2025-2028 Racing Rules of Sailing, click here.

Quiz Answers:

1) Under the 2021-2024 Rules, neither boat is entitled to mark-room (yet).

Rule 18.2(b) explains which boat gets mark-room as they approach a mark. If boats are overlapped when the first of them reaches the zone, the inside boat gets mark-room. If a boat is clear ahead when she reaches the zone, the boat clear astern must give her mark-room.

In this situation, however, neither of those two conditions exists. When the first boat (Z) gets to the zone, the boats are not overlapped and Z is not clear ahead of X; therefore rule 18.2(b) does not apply.

When 18.2(b) does not apply, rule 18.2(a) says when boats are overlapped the outside boat shall give the inside boat mark-room. But at the moment shown, the boats are not overlapped, so neither gets mark-room under 18.2(a). This is a rare and slightly confusing situation where rule 18 applies when the first boat reaches the zone but neither boat is entitled to mark-room at that point.

It is likely, however, that when X turns toward the mark the boats will become overlapped. If this happens, 18.2(a) says X must give the inside boat (Z) mark-room.

2) Under the 2025-2028 Rules, Boat Z is entitled to mark-room from Boat X.

One goal of the new rule 18 (Mark-Room) is to take the mystery out of the situation above. When the new rule 18 applies, it always tells us which boat gets mark-room when the first boat of the pair enters the zone. If the boats are overlapped at that moment, the inside boat gets mark-room. If the boats are not overlapped, the boat that reached the zone first gets mark-room.

There is no longer any difference between a boat that reaches the zone first and is clear ahead versus a boat that reaches the zone first but is clear astern. The outcome now is simpler and more logical – when the boats are not overlapped as they approach the mark, the boat that gets to the zone first is entitled to mark-room.

In practice, this won’t be much of a change.

Under the 2021-2024 rules, the boat that was clear ahead but outside the zone usually ended up having to give mark-room when she turned toward the mark and became overlapped on the outside of the boat that reached the zone first. Under the new rules, a clear-ahead boat that is outside the zone will also have to give mark-room, but a significant difference is that boats will now know sooner (at the time the first one reaches the zone) which boat gets mark-room and which one will have to give it.