"Jeff" wrote
| This is an interesting question - its raises a few points not often
| considered.
|
| We must ask, "are you still a sailboat if you also deploy oars?"
| First of all, you have to be "under sail" - are you actually under
| sail if there is no wind? Second, you can't be using "propelling
| machinery." I never thought about this before, but why couldn't oars
| be considered "machinery," albeit of a rudimentary nature? Of course,
| the courts have never ruled that "human power" constitutes machinery,
| and they've certainly ruled that a sailboat becalmed is still a
| sailboat, so we're left with simply that a sailboat with oars is still
| a sailboat.
|
| Now we come to the next question, "does a rowboat have right of way?"
| Of course, "right of way" is not a concept in the Colregs, and even
| the terms privilege and burden have been removed. But its still
| convenient to use these terms, if you keep in mind that the wording,
| and underlying concepts, are different.
|
| The interesting thing is that there is absolutely no mention of
| vessels under oars, other than to mention that a vessel under oars
| *may* use the same lights as a sailboat, if they want to. Some people
| have tried to claim that this puts rowboats at the same level as
| sailboats on the "pecking order" but there is no basis for this. And
| of course, some will always claim that rowboats have rights because
| they are small, or less maneuverable, but this is not particularly
| compelling. To confuse the matter more, many states have inland rules
| that apply in non-navigable waters not connected to oceans that do
| specify that human powered boats have right of way over all others.
|
| However, the Colregs do not have anything to say about
| responsibilities concerning vessels under oars. Since we already
| established you are still a sailboat, the interaction with another
| sailboat would simply have to be considered on that basis. Of course,
| if the is no wind, and the boat under oars has to take into account
| other rules, such as "limitations of vessels."


Wow! I'm impressed. Very well written. Sounds like something you'd read out of a book. Did you get it
out of a book or did you just write it on the spot? So, the answer is your probably still a sailboat. So you
can't really go wrong following the sailboat rules. Thank you very much for such a complete answer. Your
a credit to this newsgroup.

Cheers,
Ellen