Maverick, you are absolutely right. It's been over seventy years since I used a couple barrel staves as very unsatisfactory skis. Now that you mention it, I remember the grooves in inside ends of staves to retain the heads.
But lood at that illustration. It does not show any of the joints of the staves in the chime, which it should have.
But still, only as a metaphor, could it be said that the chimes scarred the deck. It had to be the head hoops that did it. Yet if the barrels had much of a belly, the chimes shouldn't have touched the deck. Unless of course, lazy slobs just tilted an upright barrel, to roll it on the "chime" area, as I have myself done with steel barrels that were hard to tip up when lying on their side.That would have really scarred the deck. I just thought of something. On ship board, motionof the waves could make a barrel lying on its side a "loose cannon", so that it was safer though slower to just tilt an upright barrel a little,
and have two men roll it on the "chimes".