Originally Posted by
rebel1916
There are situations where position matters, so the upstream boat has the right of way no matter what size, but generally more maneuverable yields. As in ski boat yields to sail boat yields to ferry, yields to tanker. Just like on the road, everyone has a duty to avoid an accident, but on a huge container ship you mightn't even be able to see a sail boat from the bridge. That said, I am a rec boater and I'm sure someone with a better understanding will soon put me in my place...
Originally Posted by
LesterOfPuppets
I've sailed on a few rivers with a 26" sailboat. I'm pretty sure the barges coming downriver have the right of way in the channel. Possibly even the same for barges coming upriver. We always yield to them cuz we just have about 5' draft and they have much more. We don't really need the 28' deep channel water.
On my last cruise I thought for sure our gigantic cruise ship was gonna take out a sailboat in the channel @ San Diego harbor. Cap'n was REALLY laying on the horn.
The way I equate that to vehicular traffic is always yield to trains when you're on the train tracks with your truck, car or bike
These aren't too far off.
Basically, the more constrained vessel has precedence. Sailboats are a bit weird because their "engines" are external: their maneuverability is constrained because they depend on the wind (blowing in one direction at any given time).
Being slow (by itself) doesn't confer any precedence. A human-powered vessel is at the bottom of the pile.