Jeff Morris wrote:

Once again you show your total ignorance of the rules! Rule 19 does not
require boats to slow to a safe speed, its Rule 6:

On the contrary.

Rule 6 requires speeds to be safe at all times, there is no explicit
mention of reducing to a safe speed. Not even in 19b. Only in 19e.

Both 6 and 19b *imply* that a reduction might be mandated in some
circumstances, but only 19e makes *explicit* mention of reduction,
and then only in specific circumstances.

All vessels must always proceed at a safe speed - this is one of the
basics. Rule 19 says that sometimes you have to go even slower.

Even slower than safe speed? No, it only means that "safe" may at
times mean very slow.

The central issue of this discussion has been your insistance that there
is no situation where a sailboat must slow down.

In this he is of course mistaken.

Yet rule 19 unequivocally mandates that "ALL VESSELS ...
SHALL REDUCE SPEED TO A MINIMUM..." What can be clearer than that?

Careful, you're misquoting. It says "...to the minimum at which she can
be kept on her course", which means the vessel in question doesn't need
to go any slower than the speed at which steerage can be maintained,
unless (as required be the following sentence) it becomes necessary to
take all way off. But remember that the whole of 19e only applies to
vessels which have heard another vessel's fog signal from apparently
forward, or where an unavoidable close quarters situation already exists.