Good Points!!!

: Best performance?

: It all depends on what kind of performance you want: Sailing, surfing,
: whitewater, straightline speed, slalom type turning, etc.

: Remember that Stitch and glue is a PROCESS for connecting plywood panels,
: while wood strip construction is a 3 dimensional modelling technique that
: gives you a boat. Although the strips are usually edge glued, they COULD
: be connected by stitch and glue.

: The fastest rowed boats are the long racing shells, which have such rounded
: hulls. If you are looking for a smooth, round hull, there is a lot to be
: said for using plywood, and probably joining the pieces with stitching and
: gluing.

: On the other hand, if you are going to use a computer to develop some
: theoretical "best" hull design then you will probably build it
: using thin wood strips, as they can be bent to follow very complicated
: design lines. Hopefully, what the computer says is a good hull will
: actually perform well once it is built.

: In real life , though, a good design assembled by the stitch and glue process
: should give performance that will be so close to that of a stripper that
: the difference will be very hard to measure.

: So, what you are really going to be comparing is the difference in designs,
: not the construction methods. In this case there seem to be two camps --
: and they are divided on the concept of whether the cross section of the
: hull should be round or boxy. If the boat is boxy then it has a
: "hard" chine, which enthusiasts claim contributes to straight
: tracking, and "sharp turns". The water acts on the flat surfaced sides of
: the boat much like water would act on a rudder.

: On the other hand, round bottom enthusiasts go for reduced wetted area in the
: attempt to get maximum hull speed, and also look at a hull shape that
: increases stability as the hull is tipped. By tipping the boat they get
: fast, "sharp turns" ?????.

Help me here. I felt hard chined hulls turned faster when edged or tipped. And Nick's book on page 8 shows some good pictures of more secondary stability. It indicates hard chined hulls also have more secondary stability in the design.

Narrower, more rounded hulls are easier to tip/lean into waves which is a type of stability but it is dependent on paddler skill, judgment and bracing. Often a large person can lean/edge a hard chine wide boat more easily than an small person can a more rounded hull. Lots of relativity here.

I have a number of both kinds of boats/hulls and other factors figure in also with as much influence. For most recreational paddling, any given design factor seems affect about a 2-5% peformance difference. There are some good articles on the Pygmy page comparing hard and round chines.

Randy