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Permalink Reply by AJ DeRosa on April 29, 2009 at 7:53am

A framed boat with a rounded chine is not a new idea. I have seen this done on framed boats in the past. We restored an old frame boat that had this done but we reworked it to the original shape and put the chine cap back on. Why? Several reasons. A chine cap really does help protect the chine joint which is the backbone of a framed boat. Put a piece of steel along the cap and you have a pretty bomb proof chine. Together they distribute the force of a chine hit and protect the integrity of this area. When bedded with a polysulfide compound like 3M 101 the joint is sealed and very easily removed if and when replacement is needed. If you use a polyurethane compound such as 3M 5200 you will also get a good strong seal but removal will be much more difficult. I have removed chine caps on old restoration projects but so far none on our working boats that have been properly bedded in the first place. Lastly, but certainly not least, is the performance advantage of a chine cap. It acts like an edge on a ski and allows the boat to carve the water as it ferrys across the current. Ask any skilled rower who has experience with this type of boat and they will agree. A rounded chine just does not respond as quickly and will often slide about on a ferry. Round chine proponents, and there are many out there, will be quick to point to chine dip as a negative but in the hands of a skilled boatman I believe the cap is an advantage in all cases. I know the stitch and glue guys will have their own opinions that will be quite different than mine. I have rowed traditional framed boats for 35+ years so I guess I am little bias on this.

Your question is a good one Larry and I'm sure this will inspire some lively commentary from both camps. Let's have at it.

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Permalink Reply by Randy Dersham on April 29, 2009 at 9:25am

I think what you are bringing up is two important issues critical to boat performance for our West Coast shallow and fast white water. The frequency of heavy hits to the chine is the first. The ferry angle performance in swift, shallow, technical water is the second. The West Coats boats take a chine hit often enough to chew away the oak chine batten after a number of years. I guide. All it takes is "oh, look at that Osprey... WHAM" On most of our rivers a couple of seconds of lack of attention is all it takes to jar your teeth. Guides replace chines often. Recreational boaters not as often. The obvious reason is the number of river hours it takes to wear down a chine.

The chine cap is a sacrificial piece. It is put on the boat to protect the sharp chine joint from damage by taking on the rocks face first. 5/8 in of inside chine log + 1/4in of side panel + 1/2 of outside chine batten give the framed West Coat Boats just under an inch and a half of epoxy soaked wood to take on the river. 1 1/2 in of white oak and plywood is what it takes to hold up to smacking 1200lbs of people, gear, and boat against a lava rock at four miles an hour. You might be able to round a chine and build up biaxial tape with epoxy but it isn't going to come close in impact resistance to the 1 1/2 in of solid wood. Add to that the 1/4 in deep by 1/2 in high stainless steel half round and the strength advantages for the chine log and batten combo are over the top. These boats only do stream side repairs in the case of serious train wrecks. Those do happen from time to time but they are not the norm.

A rounded and glassed chine of epoxy and biaxial tape is inferior to the chine cap in shallow fast water because any significant rock strike will insure a stream side repair. If a boater waits to do the repair at home he runs the risk of trapping water behind the glass introducing rot or eventually lifting the glass after multiple freeze and thaw sessions.

The rounded chine with glass is a fine method for slow water, or deep white water if the boat can introduce some other method to improve its inline tracking. The is made obvious by the many methods of bottom manipulation by fiberglass boat builders. Tunnel hulls and tracking channels etc. are added to the round chined boats to help make them a competitive performer on the river. As A.J. points, the sharp chine joint is critical to ferry angle performance in any water and ferry angle performance is critical in almost all white water situations.


At Tatman Boats on new construction we do a slight round of the chine joint and tape the joint with tape; however, we protect that tape and the fiberglass bottom edge with a chine cap and a strong fillet mixture between the chine cap and the slightly rounded bottom. On repair jobs that do not require a new bottom, we use 3M5200 to seal the bottom to side panel joint and the chine cap.

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Permalink Reply by lhedrick on April 29, 2009 at 7:54pm

Well, how do I respond to all this great info.

The chine on my first boat was not solid enough. I dug an oar in a rapid (stupid move) and before I could get the oar back in place I board sided a boulder hard. I put a small dent into the chine and that was it. At home I did the repair.

Later on I rebuild the boat for white water. I added a larger fillet inside with 2 layers of bi-axial tape. Hits to the chine just kind of make a dent. At home it's just a matter of some resin and filler. I have no reservations about the chine having the strength needed.

Last year I was on the Colorado and we had a 12 year old Tatman dory on the trip. Our first camp was below house rock rapid in an surging eddy. The boat pounded a rock all night. The chine cap and side were very chewed up. Since it was below the water line it was not found until take out, 21 days later. At home it was repaired. The was no rot and the boat is just fine. As for the same thing happening to a stitch and glue boat I think the out come would be about the same. At home we grind off the damaged section let it dry and build it back up.

I brought this subject up with the idea that water was getting in around the chine caps along the screws leading to rot. I think the issue is this. Glass or wood if the chine is neglected down the road we will have trouble. Here in the west desert almost nothing rots. Our white water and drift boats do a float and then dry out on the trailer on the way home. It takes very little work to keep things in order. Back in the 60s I helped my father build framed speed boats which had screwed in chine caps. These boats often floated all summer on lakes at a buoy. We often saw rot on the chines of those boats as they got older. After a trip where I take a hit or 2 I just look under the boat while it's on the trailer. If I see a nick and glass is showing I just fill it. Each season I flip the boat and inspect it. I have had almost no trouble in 9 years.

Don't throw rocks at me for this but, I am moving to composites which are lighter and can't rot and are without doubt many times more impact resistant then plywood. I have done impact tests with plascore V plywood. All the plywood samples fractured while the impact to the plascore just resulted in the impact object just bouncing off leaving a small dent.

What I find most interesting in all this is how the commercial polyester boat builders have convinced people wood boats aren't durable. I find it just the opposite and to make a molded boat as strong as a wood boat they need to make it 100 pounds heavier. When you look at all the stories posted here about how old wood boats just keep on going you realize that wood is still about as good as it gets. A 25 year old gel coat boat doesn't look very good.

To all who have responded, my suggestion was not to start a one is better then the other type thread. Just a bit of exploration about methods. A lot of good information has been posted.

L

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Permalink Reply by Randy Dersham on April 29, 2009 at 8:40pm

Larry you are correct that one is not better than the other. Each method has its compromise and situations that it is best suited for. Your eddy example is spot on. I would expect both methods to perform about the same under those circumstances. The issue in fast shallow white water is the correlation of damage to the chine vs tracking and ferry performance. The sharper the chine the better it tracks but the more susceptible to damage. The more rounded the chine the less damage but the less tracking and more side slipping. For our rivers we opt for a very sharp chine therefore we need to protect that chine from damage.

You happened to mention the very feature, the big radius chine, that is marketed heavily by many West Coast fiberglass boat builders as a strength feature to protect the chine yet it is at the expense of good tracking and boat control.

For white water we need a light weight, good tracking, stiff, boat with a low center of gravity. It doesn't really matter what methods we use to get there.

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Permalink Reply by Karl Mueller on April 29, 2009 at 10:45am

I think Randy pretty much hit all the highlights, I have a question for him though . . .

Why use stainless steel rounds? Here's my thinking . . . steel is going to transfer more shock to the batten, ply and log when taking a direct hit. Remember then old fashioned hard bike helmets? They got rid of those for single impact ones that break apart thus better protecting your noggin. It also seems steel would be stickier?

My batten cap is a UHMW strip and the only ridiculously brutal shot I took (the whole boat shivered), it split, I think, absorbing a lot of the shock that would have otherwise been transferred potentially causing serious structural damage. No other shot I have taken has done any appreciable harm to my protective strip.

You guys have obviously decided that steel is the better choice, what is the rationale? Durabiltiy?

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Permalink Reply by Randy Dersham on April 29, 2009 at 2:33pm

That's easy.... there so pretty! The half rounds don't catch on things and don't add as much to chine dip. One downside is that they are much more expensive. Our kits go out with 1/4 in UHMW. That is the standard protection for the chine cap and has some advantages as you pointed out. Many people run without any protection on the chine.

Interesting comment below from Herb about Willard Lucas. Willard did a lot of experimenting. A couple of years ago I asked him what boat was his favorite. He didn't have a favorite boat but he brought up those chines. He told me they were aluminum but they could have been steel or we could be talking about two different boats.

Herb, our story about the metal hitting the rocks matches a story I was told by Dick Helfrich. Dick told me that Willard was one of the best rowers he has ever known, but Willard would do anything to avoid extra oar strokes including running against the rocks. In some places he would allow the boat to drag against the chine to slow the boat and keep his clients in the fishing area longer. Your story from Elldon Windle matches my story from Dick Helfrich. I guess those rocks in the river are really speed bumps meant to slow us down;)

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Permalink Reply by Herb Jacobsen on April 29, 2009 at 5:51pm

Isn't that a hoot. There are so many memories and things to talk about. Dick Helfrich, Steve and Dave Schaefers are some of my most favorite people,,,, Eldon Windle was one of the first people to tell me about how to use rocks to slow down. Sometimes it worked sometimes it was "BUMP".....

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Permalink Reply by Dave Z on April 29, 2009 at 12:06pm

I have wood only on my boats. no SS or UMHW at all. They take a beating and I'll replace them.

I have replaced a chine cap on one after 5 years. Like Randy says, they are sacrifical. The glass layers scare me for exactly what Randy says- water under it, freeze/thaw, etc... its a bigger repair in the end.

good luck!

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Permalink Reply by lhedrick on April 30, 2009 at 7:26am

I have to disagree on this one. Think about it. Go get 10 or 12 foot stock. Plane it down, rip it to size. Scarf the ends to yield a 16 -17 foot piece. Clean up the glue joint. Remove the old piece clean up the joint. Drill and re-attach the new one.

No problem with with framed boats here but, I am also a wood worker and know how much time each process takes. There is no possible way a chine cap replacement is faster them me grinding down a section of chine and building it back up. I get the prep done faster then the screws can be removed from the old chine cap. As for the issue of water under the glass causing trouble that also does not seem to be accurate. I have taken lots of small hits and in doing the repairs there is no rot on my boat after 9 years. It will never rot if the proper maintenance is done. The same for a framed boat. What about a Hyde or Clacka? When the chine on one of things is smashed good luck. At least aluminum can be welded.

Another thing I hate to confess. I had my boat come off of a piece of junk V hull boat trailer because a strap came loose on a dirt road. I ground all the way through the glass and plywood at the chine by the time I saw it. About a 3 foot section. Talk about stupid. You could see day light through the fillet on the inside. It was like taking a grinder to the chine at a right angle and removing a 4 inch wide section. The repair only took about 2 hours over a few days building up new glass. There is no sign of the damage today. There would have been no way to replace a chine cap because there was no chine left. A new section of plywood would have been required before the chine cap could have been attached. I know this sounds like I am bashing framed boats and that's not the case at all. I love the look of the framed boats but I can work faster with glass, that's just me. As most of the people here are framed builder I only wish to indicate that stitch and glue boats are no problem when it comes to chine issues and it is my opinion that with plascore on the bottom and using kevlar and bi-axial tape wood just can't match the durability and ease of repair on the river and off. As for the performance differences if you can feel them that's another issue.

There has been a lot of discussion here about the performance aspects of how the hard square chine affects the handling of a boat in different water. I row all kind of water from 800 to 25,000 flows on the Green and Colorado each season. Bumping rocks to digging like hell just to hold my line because I go pushed where I didn't want to be. Some runs are great others I get my ass kicked. I row cats, rafts, dories with rounded chines and with hard chines.

I guess I just don't have the feel for the performance differences. The only thing I really notice on all the boats is how the rocker effects things, but then I have always been a hacker at whatever I have done. I don't excel at anything. I drive junk subarus and old trucks not performance wheels. I just want to be out there and will row whatever I can get my hands on.

Next week I launch on May 8 for a trip down the Grand Canyon. A person had to drop out because of an injury and losing his boat has caused us a gear hauling problem meaning I am stuck taking a friends raft while he takes my low performance round chine dory down the Green. I will just have to deal with the fact that the raft has an ever more round chine then my stitch and glue boat. At least I can haul more beer now.

This is been a great discussion and well worth it. I picked up a lot of information on this one.

Thanks to all.

L

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Permalink Reply by Herb Jacobsen on April 29, 2009 at 1:08pm

If I remember correctly, Willard Lucas had a set of case hardened steel chine caps on his drift boat. Elldon Windle told me about it a bunch of years ago. On a trip down the MIddle Fork of the Salmon, Eldon said he kept hearing a clicking sound from one of the boats. Turned out it was the steel chine caps hitting the rocks that he heard.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Dearing on April 29, 2009 at 8:34pm

Interesting discussion. Personally there is no contest for me in the durability contest, Aluminum wins hands down, nothing else comes close. I always hear that wood boats are lighter, but after rowing both my boats back to back over the last couple of weeks the truck scale tells me they are about the same, plus my shoulders tell me that the Willie is much easier on my body. As a stop and go boat either one will work, but for what I do most of the time, pulling plugs, or bottom bouncing, the Willie is much easier to hold in any type of water.

I have the UHMW the chine caps of my woodie and they seem to work ok, but my wood boat doesn't see much use any more cause I just don't like beating the crap out of it. Speaking of UHMW, somebody below mentioned that he thought that the UHMW acts like a shock absorber of sorts, from what I've read about the stuff this isn't true. Its a very hard, dense material and transfers huge shock to whatever it attached to. I remember reading somewhere an article about Wooldrige boats and how through their experiments with the UHMW they actually had to beef up the bottom of their boats they attached the stuff to because it was transferring more shock to the bottom of the boats with it then without it.

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Permalink Reply by Karl Mueller on April 30, 2009 at 11:50am

Mike:

What I suggested above was that when the UHMW broke when I hit an extraordinarily sharp rock, actually an angular piece of concrete in the town run on the Willamette, the act of breaking absorbed some of the shock. If there was a thin strip of metal as was often used in the past, it wouldn't have broken and more the shock would have been transferred. It may have protected my chine but it wouldn't have broken and as such there would have been more energy transferred to the structural components of the boat. What would've happened I'll never know and don't mind not knowing. No doubt, UHMW is dense and I am only speculating . . . . The comparison though was with regard to the shock absorbing qualities of UHMW vs. metal, not UHMW vs bare wood or anything else. If the UHMW cap (and no other cap) was not there I am sure much more damage would have occurred to the batten.

Reef a rock and either the wood is protected or it isn't.

Unprotected, portions of the chine or bottom can be torn away by the impact with a rock which certainly would provide superior shock absorption but that's kind of a cut off your nose to spite your face type of solution. I prefer not to use that technique.

Five years, winter steelheading, Cascade trouting at least once a week, I've lost one 1/8" inch deep portion of my batten, easy fix and while maybe not as strong as before, not exactly high maintenance. I don't think of my battens as sacrificial lambs, I generally want to be using my boat, not working on it which is why I have those strips.

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