Not just Tonnage at play here, a vessel towing another always has right of way.
While living aboard and sailing on a wood Fuji 35 in Hawaii for 6 weeks, we were doing a night passage and my cousin steered to the aft of a large tug, not realizing that it had huge cables and 2 Pineapple barges in tow, it was too late when I realized what he had done, se sailed over the cables and it, whew!
Did not hear about a close call Tradewinds, where was that?
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