I’ve had some energy lately to revisit and re-examine strokes that I learned many many years ago. Included among these were low brace turns, bow rudders and hanging draw strokes (not really a turn but thats OK for the point of this question). I tried them with onside and offside edging, and no edging at all to see how much impact that had. My general impression was that edging helped (although so dramatically that I didn’t have to think about and wondering if I was imagining it), but that the side I was edging towards wasn’t terribly consequential. Is this surprising? Usually I hear people advise to edge/lean away from the turn. One thing that is going on with edges and leans is that you are shortening your boats waterline, adding more rocker (e.g., if the boat were sitting completely on its side it would have tremendous rocker), and getting the stems partly out of the water. So from this perspective, it doesn’t seem surprising insofar as tilting your boat in either direction would accomplish this.
However, another argument I have heard about edging and leaning goes something like this (at least this is my understanding of it). If underway, the bow will be locked in place no matter what because of the greater pressure on it as it parts the water. The stern is more free to move from side to side. By putting your boat on edge (for example lets say to the right), it is easier for your boat to rotate counterclockwise because the back of the boat can skid to the right more easily. Put differently, the water can slide more easily under the rear stem and the V-like cross section of your boat as that V starts to turn on its right side. If the V turns gets tilted to the left however, the water is just hitting a vertical wall so that the boat will meet with greater resistance when trying to skid. Anyway, maybe my understanding of this is not right to begin with, but if it is, this 2nd factor seems not to be very significant with my boat (Necky Chatham 17) because all that seems to matter is that it is edged. Again, the direction of edge doesn’t seem very consequential. Boats with different hull shapes (e.g., those with rounded hulls) would conceivably behave differently.
Anyway, I’m just trying to have an accurate understanding of why my boat does what it does, so I welcome any knowledge or additional speculation about all this.