How Close is Too Close?!

2009 07 06 - Day 10 - Baltic Sea

Stumbling bleary-eyed into our first morning watch, the 4-to-8-ers discovered that during the night the Christian Radich had passed us and was now small on the horizon ahead.
How so?
During the night we had tried to take a racing line round an oil rig... The rig radioed us that we would pass too close and requested that we change course to pass further away. The changing of course had taken time and slowed us down. Christian Radich had chosen a course following a bigger arc further away and so had not lost speed. Our crew were convinced we were far enough away. I don't know how close is too close but to my land-lubber's eyes we were literally miles away.
Booo to oil rigs!
Ah well, plenty of the race to go yet!