[dpboatnut]

First, the rule:
17 ON THE SAME TACK; PROPER COURSE
17.1 If a boat clear astern becomes overlapped within two of her hull lengths
to leeward of a boat on the same tack, she shall not sail above her proper
course while they remain overlapped within that distance, unless in
doing so she promptly sails astern of the other boat.

The situation:
On a broad reach, starboard jibe, we (a Santana3030) caught up to another boat (a Santana 35) going the same direction. As we approached from astern of him, he grabbed a bunch of main and headed up, to prevent us from rolling over the top. We dived low, establishing a leeward overlap from astern within two boatlengths. Clearly, we could not luff him up beyond our proper course, but because he was a bigger boat going a similar speed to us, we couldn''t break through his wind shadow. So we tried to go lower, while maintaining some speed, and eventually got two boatlengths of seperation, although we never broke the overlap. Some conversation ensued, and he mentioned that since I hadn''t broken the overlap, I couldn''t come up beyond proper course and luff him to clear my wind. That sounded reasonable, so I didn''t, and a while later we broke through and passed through his exhaust. Rereading 17.1, it sounds like I could have come back at him after breaking the two-boat distance, no? Has anyone seen that happen?

Thanks!
Chad