Generally I find the rules straightforward on paper but in the heat of the moment the nuances of situation awareness (ha, nuanced for my level!) are often lost.
A prime example of this is how an overlap was established at the start, which often doesn't really matter until the starting gun goes by which time I've often lost track and therefore lost ability to push an advantage because I have to play safe.
In our last regatta though I gave up a good rounding at the leeward mark. Coming in on starboard with a bunch of slow port tack boats overlapped we took the lead and protected our position. It was one of those interesting roundings where somehow no boat gets touched and it all works out fairly sanely even though we've got ten boats stacked three deep around the mark (with Kraken on the inside).
What I failed to do was round properly. As the STAND ON boat we had rights to round wide and fast, but instead came in tight and turned hard killing boat speed.
It worked out, and in this situation we made the gains needed and went on to win the race (the cross to get starboard prior to the mark was probably the winning move).
Of course, I have some doubts about those port tack boats not thinking they would try and poke in front of us if we gave them a gap despite the overlap on entry to the zone. They were slow though so maybe they wouldn't have tried. There's some balance though here and the point is to know that you have the right to a tactical rounding rather than a seaman like rounding.
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