Question: I have seen boats described as having a "hard chine." Can someone define this for me? Is it that the hull and the deck meet at a sharp angle, instead of a rounded corner, and that a hard chine, as opposed to a soft chine, refers to how sharp this angle is? Secondly, does a hard chine give greater secondary stability, allowing for easier leans? Finally, is chine pronounced (in English) as it would be in French (e.g., "sheen"), or is it pronounced like Chin[a]? Thanks, Josh (Who lately been playing around with paddle blade widths between a Lendal Nordkapp and a Lendal Archipelago...) ============================================================================== Dr. Joshua Teitelbaum, Research Fellow Tel: [972] 3-640-6448 Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and Fax: [972] 3-641-5802 African Studies Tel Aviv University Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 69978 Israel E-mail:teitelba_at_ccsg.tau.ac.il www.dayan.org ============================================================================== *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Joshua Teitelbaum wrote: > > Question: > > I have seen boats described as having a "hard chine." Can someone define > this for me? The chine is the area of a boat where the bottom of the boat meets the side. A hard chine is a distinct meeting of planes at this point as opposed to a soft chine being a curve. Chine is pronounced in English with a long "i" sound - (as you correctly surmised in your "Chin(a) example). I don't think that it can be categorically stated that hard chines give greater secondary stability - too many variables all combine together to affect stability. I'm sure by this time you've seen some of the fascinating Winters/Broze discussions on areas of kayak design here on PW.... If kayak design were a science there would be about 5 or 6 basic sea kayak types (with a range of sizes). Remember also that a hard chine doesn't necessarily run the full length of the boat - poke around on http://www.marinerkayaks.com and you'll see what I'm talking about. If you're looking for a generalisation about hard chines it might be that boats with hard chines turn more easily when committed to the turn with a lean than a simlarly designed boat with soft chines......then again, I hate generalisations because they tend to be inaccurate<grin>. Dave Seng Juneau, Alaska *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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