The stem knee is going to connect the stem to the keel via bronze lag bolts, holding everything in place. All of the stringers will come forward to tie into the stem, making it a very important component of the dinghy backboard.
The chine logs come forward to a point a lot closer than the sheer and shelf clamps do, and they won't allow the stem to fit between them, so the choice was simple: cut some wood to make it fit!
If I cut the chine logs shorter so that they could tie into the stem, the stem would need to be set very far aft and that would shorten the whole boat. The other option is to have the chine logs tie into the stem knee and have the planks skip the chine log between the first station and the stem. This span is only a few inches, so there will be no major catastrophic reductions in strength by not attaching the forward strakes to the chine log.
To get the stem knee to fit between the chine logs, I set the knee in front of them and marked the chine logs anterior portion with a a saw. After removing the knee, to avoid scaring the sides of the knee, I cut the chine logs vertically, creating an opening that would fit the stem knee in the middle of them.
When the time comes to bolt and glue everything together, the chine logs will be glued and screwed to the stem knee;s sides. This will tie the chines in on the forward part of the dinghy while almost connecting to the bottom of the stem.
