Case 12: In the photo below, the overlapped boats have just reached the offset mark and are rounding onto a run to the leeward mark.
1. Does rule 18 permit Poul (the inside boat) to make a "tactical rounding" or is he merely entitled to "room" (for a seamanlike rounding)?
2. Does Poul have to turn slowly in order to give Gunnar (the outside boat) room to keep clear?
3. Gunnar wants to gybe now but Poul wants to wait. What does rule 18 say about this?

Answer:
1. The inside boat is also the right-of-way boat here (leeward) and rule 18 does not turn off basic right-of-way rules like port/starboard (rule 10) and windward/leeward (rule 11), i.e. Poul can take as much room as he likes. The only time an inside boat is not entitled to take enough room for a "tactical rounding" (e.g. wide and close at the mark) is when the outside boat is the right-of-way boat. For instance, the outside boat could be leeward (end of a buoys-to-port triangle) or starboard (end of a buoys-to-starboard run), and in that case, the inside boat is only entitled to mark-room, i.e. only enough room to make a seamanlike rounding.
2. No. Such room to keep clear is provided under rule 16.1, but rule 21 states:
"When a boat is sailing within the room or mark-room to which she is entitled under a rule of Section C, she shall be exonerated if, in an incident with a boat required to give her that room or mark-room,
(a) she breaks a rule of Section A, rule 15 or rule 16, or
(b) she is compelled to break rule 31.
"
3. The timing of the gybe will be entirely at Poul's discretion because the inside boat can round any way he likes. Rule 18.4 (gybing) requires an inside boat which "must gybe" to make a proper course rounding. But here 18.4 will not even apply, since the next leg is a run, and proper course does not necessarily require a gybe.

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