"Denny" wrote

Roger, take a deep breath and forget about it...

Don't read too much into this. These were hardly big deals or
emergencies but they do raise some interesting discussion points about
the current state of the system we all rely on to help us avoid
hitting each other.

I used to sail Solings around Boston Harbor on Sunday afternoons with
spinnakers set so I'm comfortable keeping complex traffic situations
sorted out and handling a sailboat. Both of these close encounters
however, were situations where an inexperienced person, already
dealing with challenging conditions, could have gotten into trouble.
The skippers of these two boats had no way of knowing I wasn't one of
those.

What I hear from my numerous contacts on the "other side", as one
primarily involved with commercial vessels, is irritation that so many
sailboats assume that the always have the right of way, even over
large vessels constrained in channels and, as someone else responded,
when their engines are on. Many also think the sails give them the
right to tack whenever they want.

What we may be seeing here is the commercial vessels (and private
yacht captains with the conceit that they are such) pushing back by
trying to promote the expectation that they will NEVER deviate or
change speed for smaller craft. If this is the case, it's only a
matter of time before there is a tragedy.

--

Roger Long