A good start for this project would be to do a webwide search for scientifically well developped articles and websites like :

http://www.onemetre.net/

or the miss Nylex design article (C-class) that contains results of actual testing (but I can't seem to find now.

It will be most easy to discuss the scientific merit and dependability of these website as a group. This saves us all alot of time typing of lengthy pieces only to find out that it was disproven somewhere else.

This way we also build a common base of understanding of scientific principles and what has already been developped by skilled engineers using this principles. It will be far better the advance the open source project on this foundation then to shoot us in some direction. This point is key, I can't overstress is enough. Again there are alot of misconception around with respect to boat design.

Wouter