I think the 14 needs to be re-thought and radical (especialy if it is someone else's time and money?)
I would try deep hulls so the boat is less prone to hobby horsing (short shallow hulls will be a disaster in this regard, even though there may be strong arguments to support planing hulls)
This could be countered with a mast well aft and large rudders, no centerboards. While twitchy and not easy to "get rolling" the boat would tack and drive really well. A cable type traveller "track" for the mainsheet from rudder gudgeon to rudder gudgeon? I believe that in the real world of chop-whenever-it-blows any, the extra wetted surface of narrow deep hulls would pay off in fore-aft stability (not "shaking the wind out the sails")
Mast aft also reduces pitch poling off the wind. While the moment produced is unchanged (center of effort is still acting at same height) the mast weight and inertia are further aft which effects the countering moment and response time.
Maybe a longitudinal center beam from fore to aft crossbeams with multiple mast ball mounting holes and multiple shroud plate mountings at the hull fabrication stage would be reasonably cheap to do, and you could learn a lot fast. Maybe you could do without a hooter pole, a savings in itself? if the mast was way back.