Full Final | SailGP Season 1 Grand Final | 🇦🇺 v 🇯🇵 | SailGP 

They had the right of way, because the wind was coming in from their side. If they had collided Australia would get a penalty loop and effectively lose the match.

@@TheRealDuckofDeath thanks! In non-competitive boating it’s everyone’s responsibility to avoid a collision. Is a large part of this sport abusing the right of way to bully people out of the way or into penalties?

@@donaldmarcato7003 It is the main rule used in all sailing when there is a tight fight for places. Try to force the other boat below the rounding mark. I guess, it's the same in all sports where collisions has to be decided by right of way, like motor racing when they reach corners and such. I vaguely also suspect the Aussies also happily took that pre-start penalty. They seemed to be all-in on holding that "high" position to the wind, which is probably easier when the other boat is "forced" to stay in front with that particular wind direction.

Boats on the starboard tack have ‘right of way’ in all levels of yacht racing

​@@donaldmarcato7003 Hi, good question, think there's been a slight misexplaination here. There are 3 main "right of way" rules in match sailing. The first is the port/starboard rule, where boats on starboard tack have right of way. The second is windward/leeward - in the case that two boats are overlapped and on the same tack, the leeward (downwind) boat has right of way. The third is coming into marks, the inside boat has right of way. The area where the inside boat has right of way in this race is indicated by the virtual yellow circles you can see in some of the shots. In this vid you can see the Aus boat coming into the mark on starboard (they have right of way) with Jap on port. Japan jibe after crossing Australia's path so that their boat is now downwind of Australia. This means they have right of way as they are the leeward boat with the boats overlapped. What they do here is turn aggressively upwind to try to "luff" (push upwind) the Aus boat in an attempt to make them miss the mark. They have only a limited time to do this too, as once they made it into the yellow circle the Australians would then have right of way, being the inside boat. All-in-all an interesting clip!

But more eko

Following right behind a boat really doesn’t give you any opportunities to pass them. So they had to do something different.