Todd's answer is good. We really do not need more then that to sail fast.
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<br>The only addition I would make is that the stability of the sail as an airfoil, even if not so easy to achieve, is very easy to verify using teltales.
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<br>While your teltales are flying as recommended by the sailmaker, you can usually forget the position of the curve and focus more on the depth to adjust the much more critical factor, which is the ideal heading x speed balance.
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<br>If you want to know more about how an airfoil works, take a look at http://www.monmouth.com/~jsd/how/htm/airfoils.html#toc55 for the Airfoils and Airflow chapter of the online book "See How It Flies".
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<br>Keep it simple,
<br><br><br>Luiz