Thanks for the replies guys; sorry I'm late getting back but after waiting a few days, I had given up on the thread.

KC, I was thinking of making a core with a local shopbot and laminating over it -- probably a carbon uni "spar cap" and a couple of layers of glass over the whole thing. I noticed that softwood (pine, cedar, etc.) adds about a pound over foam for my design and does a lot more to prevent failures due to local buckling, not to mention dings. This old style seems to have advantages, especially in a shallow water venue with lots of sandbars, weeds, pipes sticking randomly out of the water, etc.

That "DAG" foil design you describe sounds interesting: things which I had thought would worsen high-angle performance (sharper LE, larger adverse gradients in the back) improve it? Then again, there are so many things going on, one wouldn't expect undergrad level fluids to be much of a useful guide...

For a recreational business, there sure are a lot of closely guarded trade secrets. But, one has to respect that people who have innovated need to, well, eat. Holding onto design details seems a bit more polite than starting a one-builder class. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />