Maybe the equivalent in boating is:

He who has the biggest wake
Survives to attend the other boaters wake

It's the same thing as the "Gross Tonnage Rule." The bigger boat often, and sometimes, rightfully, gets the right of way, because he may just need more room. Ask wildman how he would feel about a Boston Whaler or a bass boat getting in his way, when he has a good-sized tow, especially with the curretn behind him. In some cases, there is nothing else a larger vessel can do but stick to the channel, and stopping a large vessel might not happen for a great distance.

Note that there may be a "relative hull strength corollary" that is an addendum to the "gross tonnage rule." If the bigger boat is made of thin fiberglass, the smaller boat with a stronger hull wins.

DesertFox, your boat presents options because it's a real boat. I'd feel very comfortable taking a boat that size up either the East of North (Hudson) Rivers, and a lot more local places. It's not something DW would want to live aboard for a night, but if you had to, it's possible. It would be the heck out of a sea kayak, inflatable or not.

bilojax, flood presents dangers because the water leaving the flooded area is going to be moving, possibly darned fast. If you do not have experience handling a vessel in that kind of a current, I wouldn't want to be in the boat with you.

I have experience taking a vessel through the East River. I've been through it a number of times on tugboats with tows, learned how to get through it from a pilot that had a ton of experience in the area, and I taught a whole bunch of people how to get through it's toughest spot, the correctly named "Hell Gate." That experience gives me some knowledge about how to navigate in that area. However, that does not give me the feeling I have enough experience to get safely through the area in a kayak.

If you were in a boat being sept away by flood waters, you are likely to have a tough darn time keeping control and you will be moving fast. Seems like a dangerous combination to me.

I'm not totally ruling out evacuation via water as an option, but it's simply not high on the list of things I want to do.

You're a poet and don't know it...

OBG, on the water, we call it the "Law of Gross Tonnage",,,,he who has more weight will win in a collision!!

Aren't there rules regarding Right of Way for deep draft vessels?

Rules are rules, but in the end, Gross Tonnage rules (at least until you get into court).

Kindasorta like this ???

The Andrea Doria sank after the merchant ship she spotted from miles away also assumed she would alter course.
A USN cruiser, USS Belknap was virtually stripped from the deck up colliding with an aircraft carrier, and in WW2 a british cruiser was cut in half by the Queen Mary.
My 'sea daddy' BMC Lonnie white taught me " always give anything big enough to sink you TWICE the manuevering room you think it needs and add 10% to that."

Then there is PT109....

JFK took a little bitty wooden boat to a big steel boat demo derby. Little bitty wooden boats have no lug nuts...