Hard Chine Definition Needed

What exactly defines a hard chined boat? I'm under the impression that it means the hull of a boat has angular lines that are points other than spray rails, but I'm not too sure. Some help would be appreciated.

 

chine n.

1) The backbone or spine, especially of an animal.
2) A cut of meat containing part of the backbone.
3) A ridge or crest.
4) Nautical. The line of intersection between the side and bottom of a flatbottom or V-bottom boat.

With traditional wooden construction, the meaning was pretty clear, but in a molded fiberglass boat (e.g. original Boston Whaler), the distinction between a spray rail and a chine could get ambiguous.

 

Seadrive - the original Boston Whaler was not a hard-chine boat
It was originally described as a "cathedral hull" from the shape of the hollows running between the three "hull-parts" underneath.
Steve

 

but love that nomenclature

 

Yip,
If you can think of a better term for the three bulgey thingummajigs that make up the BW hull, PLEASE let me know. I like the boats, but have never been able to find a word to describe them (as you have no doubt noticed...)

Steve "speechless"

 

sorry Steve, confusion of tongues, i meant seadrive's explanation, for the sled i'm with you on cathedral, lets not make it babylonical.

 

Okee dokee. That helps clear it up a bit. I know what you mean about the Whalers though.

 

Heehee - I thought you were referring to my "hull-parts" thingies...

 

I have read that the hull design of the BW evolved as a means to circumvent Hickman's patents on the Sea Sled. The earlier BW hulls look like that may be true.

 

Any hull form that has a "hard" transition between or across any of it's surfaces is a chined hull. There are many types of hard chine craft, cathedral hull being one.

There is a soft chine hull form, that basically is a hard chine shape that has had it's chines "softened" by radiusing the transition area(s). This makes the boat look more like a round bilge boat, softens the ride and other benefits, but still has the slabish sides, typical of hard chine craft.

Tom, I've understood that the BW hull was a knock off of the Sea Sled with the addition to the bow to get around the design rip-off.

 

was thinking of looking at the frames for a hard chine hull, without beeing bettered by you experts i take it that non developable convex and concave shapes can fall in eighter, or even a in between catagory...

 

I find that two things are happening with nomenclature in the yacht building industry today. For One, landlubbers are bastardizing and outright misusing some nautical terms terms, not to mention coining their own (usually by misusing terms from other industries) More and more yachts are being sold to (tailored to) non-sailors, and this is making me sad.

Secondly, as yacht builders plunder geeks like me from other industries;Hence aerospace, architectural, heavy industrial and automotive terms find their way into the industry. (But this happens the other way too, as Battletanks and APCs have hulls too.)

Chines may soon become like bumbers on cars; They are still referred to, the function is still performed, but more often than not they are not visibly distinct from the rest of the car body.

 

Thunderhead - the reason tanks ave hulls is that they were developed by the Admiralty, not by the Army.
Terms that get mis-used are a pain in the neck. I had a long chat with someone recently about the floors in his wooden boat, and he couldn't understand why I thought plywood was unacceptable. Even marine ply. If the eejit had used the correct eterm, "Sole", I would have known what the heck he was talking about. He was gobsmacked to discover that the floors are the things that reinforce the frames (simplistic description, I know) on centreline.
Fsckin' landlubbers...

Steve "Heck is where peole go if they don't believe in Gosh"

 

yes, I forgot that the tanks were churchill's "land battleships" from his first stint as first lord....Why I know that is beyond me though....

 

SailDesign, I just had that same conversation with a client. I told him I'd just installed the remaining floor replacements on his 40 year old boat. He insisted they were only a few years old and freshly painted. I quickly realized he was talking about his sole, which was in good shape, though it's support structure was also scheduled for replacement.

Many of the terms used in other industries have nautical roots. Many hundreds of years came and went, with the highest tech thing going being ships. This is all they had to relate too when describing their new inventions. The B-17 was a fine ship to those who flew in her, as are the lighter then air ships that grace our football games and other sporting events. Though on the other hand, a sailboat hard on and at hull speed is said to have a bone in her teeth, which doesn't seem terribly nautical to me, but easy enough to relate with.

Since hull construction has turned towards stressed skin and homogonous structures, the chine proper is becoming difficult to describe. There was a time when a boat had extra keels or chines and designers thought the extra work of the additional structure a waste of labor (LFH was one) but it was easy to see and understand chine construction.

With the advent of sheet goods and 'glass products, boats pop out of or off of molds, without the structure typical in chines. I'm reminded of a reasonably modern sailboat of some size, that had several molds to make up the hull, support structure, liner with furniture, deck and cabin. If you removed the liner, deck and hull castings, you'd be hard pressed to recognize the support structure which was bonded to the hull and liner as a boat framing system. It didn't have the usual members to ID as frames, keel, floors or deck beams, but was an egg crate kind of thing with reinforcement in areas like the chain plates and engine beds. No doubt the structure was solid, it's performance numbers proved it worth the effort.

As the communications, plastics and computer industries have had to do, maybe the boat design industry needs to invent some new words to go with the new structure type(s)

Personally, if the craft has a hard break in it's surfaces, be they developed or not, I'll call them chined.