Eric
At the time I followed the thread, seeing quickly, I thought it was another. I've done at the time the download. Great work.
The great question is, beyond the chine reduce the bow down due the decrease of the beam of the side aft, decreasing the change of the LCB and LCF to aft, what more is the benefit of the chine?
Actually, I think, in the way they are designed these days, very little. Daiquiri was very close to the truth with his picture of the Beneteau, they look a bit sexy. It's style, and if you don't have style, then you don't have that certain
je ne sais quoi.
On my design
Project Amazon (1996), I went for full proper lifting strake type chines such as you would see on a powerboat. The idea was that she would be able to plane easier and stay on plane in most conditions. They worked, although they had a down side: when at anchor, waves slapping on the hull would also slap on the chines and it made living on board rather noisy. I post some pictures below.
I also designed a chine into
Bagatelle with the same expectations--that she would plane more easily. This was more like the chines you see today where they just form a corner in the hull and they bleed away to nothing going forward to the stem. It did not really work--it takes A LOT of enegry to get a sailboat to plane, and
Bagatelle does not really plane. Light as she is, she is still pretty heavy in relation to her sail area. Most of the time she is displacement sailing and does not get a chance to use her chines as intended. She does pick up stability by virtue of the chines, and generally, stability is always a speed enhancer. I post a picture of the hull on
Bagatelle, too.
One of my favorite designs that has full-length lifting strakes is Mary Falk's boat
QII, a Michael Pocock design. Pictures uploaded. Mary is an attorney in England. This is a real winning boat, finishing not only at the head of her class in one of the Transatlantic races in the early 90s, she also finished second, I think it was, in the next larger class ahead of hers. Mary has also won the Round Britain race in
QII.
In my opinion, the chines we see on sailboat hulls right now are only paying lipservice to what is really possible. We've been there, done that, and done it better than what we are seeing now.
Eric