Yellow and Blue sailing dead down wind approximately ¾ boat lengths apart. Yellow’s helmsmen looked away for a moment at position 3 and blue gybed without altering course causing their booms to touch. There was no damage or injury.

Who should be DSQ if no penalties are taken?

Intended Answer:

Like it or not Yellow is DSQ for rule 10 in this case.

Unlike tacking (rule 13) there is no rule that says that you must keep clear while gybing. Rule 15 does not apply in this case because Blue is ROW at both position 2 and position 3. She is not aquiring ROW by gybing. Rule 16 does not apply because Blue does not change course. However, I would argue that even if Blue changes course away from Yellow as she gybes she will not break rule 16 if thier booms touch because the course change would not have caused the contact or prevented Yellow from keeping clear. In fact, she would prove more difinitively that Yellow was not keeping clear since even though Blue was moving away from Yellow there was still contact.

The moral of the story here is that if you are Yellow you need to give more space between you and Blue and concern yourself with her boom should she gybe.