Chine Walking

We were taking the boat out of the water to be winterized and I was taking it for one last spin down the cove while waiting for the trailer and I felt the boat rocking. I told my husband about it when it was on the trailer and he told me it was called chine walking. Someone told me that a Mastercraft X2 was too big of a boat to chine walk. Has anyone ever had their wakeboard boat chine walk before?

I have only heard of chine lock. Had it happen to me on an older X-Star (205V hull) once. I had a boat full of people. Thank my lucky stars I was driving and not one of our less experienced buddies or we would have ended up on the shore for sure. I may have taken about 5 yrs off the tranny though getting it to stop.

I am surprised you can get an X2 to go fast enough to chine walk.

what exactly is chine walking????

Chine walking is when, at high speeds, the boat rocks from port to starboard as the boat is becoming unstable due to losing contact with the water...
jg

I have seen it with flatter bottomed boats, like bass boats when they are running pretty fast. I don't think I have seen an I/O chine walk.

Chine Walking is kind of where their boat is looking for a sweet spot and it wobbling back and forth from side to side trying to get the hull to run flat for the simple mans definition(one that I need). Very common in bass boats and high powered outboards and all high end race boats.

Like I said never heard of an inboard Chine Walking............Just chine locking. Maybe it can happen, but I would think the engine placement and top speed limit on most inboards will prevent it.

Never had Chine Lock or walk in my 9 years of owning the 99 X-star (205V).

I did get a 1968 Glastron with 125HP outboard unstable at about 60MPH about 20 years ago. Went so unstable as to almost throw me out and it put enough force on the side to tear up the glass where it attached to the rubrail.

(Message edited by big_poppa_pump on October 10, 2009)

The best way to think of chine walking is to consider it porpoising but from side to side. One side pops up and the other is pushed down. The water pressure pops that side up and the other down, and the cycle continues.
Boats much bigger than wake boats do it. Gatsby's explanation is quite good. If you weren't going full speed and lightly loaded, it was not that.

What is chine Lock?

I had a loaded LSV chine lock on me turning it quickly and almost put it onshore. It is damn scary. It would have sucked to have had a newbie driving for sure.

I don't see how an inboard can chine walk - the propeller is too far under the boat. It's a much different situation in an outboard or IO with the propeller behind the transom.

Chine Locking or Hard Chine, is when the boat either falls to one side or is pushed to one side by a swell (I'm not reffering to turning to the side but hard listing.) Once it is pushed far enough, one of the longitudinals that run on both sides of the keel take over as the keel. This causes the boat to ride listed over constantly until the power is taken off and the boat settles back into position. Chine lock is dangerous not only because the boat is listing hard to one side and the freeboard on that side becomes extremely minimal, but because the boat can turn hard to the side it is leaning toward ejecting people or rolling the boat. The best way to counter this chine lock is to reduce speed. As a Surfman in the U.S. Coast Guard I encounter this all the time during heavy weather operations. There are other methods to release a chine but dropping the speed is the safest. If you are paying particular attention to the feel of the boat you can tell when the boat is about to chine. Turning the wheel is an effective way to avoid a hard chine or chine lock, because in most instances turning slows the boat just enough to allow the boat to settle again.

It wasn't a big movement, it was a pretty small just side to side movement. I was going around 30 mph. I was just curious of why it was doing that and if that had ever happened to anyone in an inboard.

Chine walking is normally more present with offshore race boats. They chine walk then hook and throw you out

Chine walking is when, at high speeds, the boat rocks from port to starboard as the boat is becoming unstable due to losing contact with the water...
jg

True that. To experience chine walking in person is effn scary. A much younger friend of mine got a chance to take me crappie fishing one early spring, in a borrowed $58,000 bass boat hull with at least a 200 h.p. Yamaha outboard pushing us.

At first light, on a cold windy spring morning, he throttles this thing up from from the boat launch to easily 60 mph. And, we experience chine walk. Chine walk is high frequency, we're losing it, rocking. It's not just merely that the hull is losing its grip on the water, it's like the hull is a skipper stone about to pop a wheelie and land on its deck ... with my friend and me pinned like crash-test dummies, without helmets nor a windshield, to be scraped away by the water of an upside down boat stabbing the water like a low-projectile missile.

All in quest of crappies ??? Whoever has griefs with bass boat owners, you either understand or don't understand that, once they clutch that throttle, and knowing the speeds that they command, their better judgment is sort of taken over by a blood lust.

Jonathan is right, verrrryyy violent if a chine walk ends up with a hook. Wakeboard boats wont hoot like a bass boat or offshore boat will.

I understand what Corbin is saying about what I'll call a large boat chine lock, but a small boat chine lock is a little different. Assuming we are not talking about sailboats here. I will say that a small boat chine lock is most likely encountered in a moderate to hard turn. Some boats will only chine lock turning in one direction (right vs. left). This has to do with the way the boat rides in the corner of a turn, and the rotation of the prop.

The skegs or chines on the bottom our hulls are intended to improve directional stability. This is great when they are pointed down, but during a turn they obviously rise to the outside of the turn. They are also likely pointed nose high at this point. Typically, the boat is nose high due to passengers in the rear, or heavy weighting aft. Now instead of acting like a rudder, they begin to take on behavior of a wing. These forces actually add to the rolling of the hull to the inside of the turn, yet are pulling the hull to the outside of the turn. It's at this point that the boat will almost squat as if to say we turn no more, we're in the rockin' chair right here.

I would say chine locks are more pronounced on a V-hull boat. The V-hull now acts more like a flat bottom boat. In a right turn, the rudder is turning the boat right, but the chines are like a wing holding the center line of the boat up and seemingly left, and the right side of the V-hull is nearly flat to the water. Now the boat is locked up, not turning right and not turning left.

When this happens, a boat can be looking at a shore that previously was far away, but is now dead ahead! There is one sure fire way to get of this condition, and that is to reduce power or come to a full stop if required to avoid an impact. I personally have had to throw the boat into full reverse! In some boats, you can add more turn to the wheel, and this alone will be enough to overcome the lifting force on the chines and swings the back around through the turn.

-Toneus

(Message edited by toneus on October 11, 2009)

Skegs provide side to side stability and "tightness" to the hull, and keep the boat running straight when a rider is pulling from side to side. Chines provide "lift" to the hull. Two totaly different things.

(Message edited by wake_upppp on October 11, 2009)

Definition of chine lock: see 1998 MC Prostar 190.

My X-2 will wobble a bit at 45 mph with no weight from gear and only me in the boat with a tail wind. Coming back into the wind, 44 mph, no wobble. Put the plate down just 5%, no problem.

I noticed the X-35 I test drove had this small side to side shimmy at higher speeds if the trim was up. But this was a literal right to left variation of the nose of the boat, not a rolling from right to left, if you understand what I mean. So I think what I was feeling was not chine walk, but just some sliding of the hull.
Does that make sense? Felt like I could throw a sliding power turn.

Is that what you were feeling wakechic? Rolling, or a change in direction?

We don't have a plate on our X-2. But it's more like what talltigeguy is talking about. It's more the nose going left to right, not a rolling feeling. It was after dark, no wind. So it wasn't the wind pushing me around. It was kinda a cool feeling. But I had nothing in the boat, no gear, just me! I'm not really worried about it, and we thought it was like a chine walk (lock? whatever). And I was just wondering if this happened to anyone else. It's not like it was a huge side to side rolling, it was just slight movement. Felt like you were floating across the water.

It sounds like you might have been going over a distant wake that was lined up with the boat so you slowly crossed it at a slight angle. I'm on a big lake and you often get that as the evening falls. It is cool, but frustrating as you try to keep the nose going one way.

Nope, not going over a wake.