Adding Knuckle Line or Hard Chine to a Boat’s Hull in Delftship

Delftship is a ship design software which enables naval architects to create, or modify the hull of a boat or a ship effortlessly. The ship can be modeled accurately in Delftship environment. In my previous article, I discussed about the drawing modes which delfship has and how to draw deck for yacht design in Delftship.

When designing high speed boat, a naval architect will design the form of the hull that is not fully displacement one. In high speed displacement form boat will face problems related to stability. So, to solve the problems, naval architects will use plane hull or semi displacement hull which has V form. In other words, the hull will not round but will have knuckle lines.

To create such hull with chines, with the Delfship program on your computer screen opens, first click the longitudinal line of a half bread hull in perspective view while you are pressing Ctrl key. Look at the above picture.

After that when the line has got yellow color, click Edit in the menu bar and select Edge. Then click the Crease option. Now, the yellow line of the hull line which we want to knuckle will be stronger.

To visualize the hard chine which we have just created for the boat's hull, in perspective view, press Ctrl - G. The computer screen will present a 3D view of the designed boat like the following.

If we want to see the underwater form of the boat, we just turn it by moving the scroll bar at the right and at the bottom of the computer screen. The boat's or ship's hull with hard chine should look like the one below:

If you do not have the program, just go to delftship.net and register your name in the website. They will give you access to the content of the Delftship website including the download link for getting the free edition of Delftship. Delftship is similar to Maxsurf, Rhino Marine, and Autoship. It can be used to create 3D forms of ship models including the hulls, superstructure, masts, rudder and other appendages. It can also calculate the hydrostatic properties and resistance of the boat or ship. by Charles Roring