A guide to club racing - part 5 (what to do at the mark, rules and tactics)

Published 20:05 on 8 Jun 2026

Hello, and welcome back to part 5 in our series of articles aimed to get our non racing members out on the water and enjoying club racing. Hopefully by now, you know the set up of our racing day, understand the start and finish, how to read the course board and have a basic understanding of rights of way so now we get into the fun part.. what happens when you get to a mark and there is another boat near you! who has right of way?

So firstly, if in doubt keep clear (mind you the more experienced racers will shout something like "my water" or "give me space" if they think they have right of way) but at some point you will want to assert yourself so its good to know who has right of way. So lets understand a few basic concepts and phrases....

The 3 lengths rule

so the first basic to understand is that things change a bit when you are inside 3 boat lengths of the mark (take an average boat competing that day, no one is going to argue about a few feet). Outside of that zone the normal rules apply

The overlap

The yellow and blue boats are overlapped, the green boat is not overlapped even though it is inside the 3 boat zone. 

The basic thing to keep in mind is "if you are behind.. dont push in"

Outside boat keeps clear (Rule 18)

The simple "general" rule is: if you are on the inside, then the boat on the outside has to keep clear. So the inside boat watches the buoy and sails around it as close as they can, while the outside boat watches the inside one, and sails around close to them. Generally, this should mean that you only need worry about what is happening on just one side of your boat.

In the picture above, the yellow boat is on the inside so the blue boat has to keep clear

 BUT..... this is where this article stops (well sort of)...

I posed this scenario to the experienced racers:

And guess what... I got quite a few different answers. Why is that? Well a topic like this can not fully be taught by a 2 dimensional image. Some of the decision making happens maybe 10 seconds before. So for this one the approach I am going to take is more about awareness and pointing you towards further reading as follows:

• As you develop your racing in the early days it highly unlikely you are going to be locked into a scenario like above. You will probably be spread out with the fleet and having a lot of space at the mark therefore don't worry about it for now and enjoy your racing
• From Simon - tell our new folk 4 rules for your year 1
  • a) port and starboard tack rule
  • b) same tack, windward keep clear
  • c) don't hit the mark
  • d) don't hit another boat
• From Ken - the RYA have some great articles that can help develop your knowledge on this subject here
  • The one specifically about Marks can be found here

As I said, I wanted to keep this one informative but really instead of giving specific scenarios, this is more about having a basic set of guidelines that are easy to remember and as you develop during your time racing, you can dive into the rules a bit more as you start to find yourself mixing it at the marks.

If you have enjoyed this subject and want to know more, we have some great knowledge in the club who can either direct you or set up coaching sessions to develop this knowledge in more detail.

Last updated 21:41 on 9 June 2026