How would you decide this?

Dave Perry’s 100 Best Racing Rules Quizzes highlights specific aspects of the racing rules in a fun format designed to help you become more familiar with The Racing Rules of Sailing. Here is one of the quizzes:

Quiz 23
In eight knots of wind and no current, two boats, LO and WI, are approaching the race committee boat on starboard tack with two minutes and thirty seconds remaining before the starting signal. LO is aiming to pass to leeward of the race committee boat. When a length away from the race committee boat, WI hails, “Room!” and LO replies, “No Way!” WI holds her course and LO bears away to avoid contact and hails “Protest!” You are on the protest committee; how would you decide this? Answer below.

Quiz 23 Answer
Disallow LO’s protest. When boats are approaching the race committee boat to start the race, the rules of Part 2, Section C, At Marks and Obstructions, do not apply (see the preamble to Section C).

In this case, when LO and WI were approaching the race committee boat, there were two and a half minutes remaining before the starting signal. Therefore, the boats were not approaching the race committee boat to start the race, and the rules of Part 2, Section C, At Marks and Obstructions, applied (see the preamble to Section C).

Rule 19.2(b), Giving Room at an Obstruction, states: “When boats are over-lapped, the outside boat shall give the inside boat room between her and the obstruction…”. The race committee boat is an “obstruction” due to its physical size (see the definition Obstruction). LO was the outside boat, and she properly gave WI room to pass between her and the race committee boat.