Carl- thank you for the excellent post! That will be most helpful. I will try to look to the larger boats for inspiration in hull design.

Regarding the hull width and building method- cylinder molding is bending two pieces of plywood over each other (over a mold that resembles the cross-section of the hull), and vacuum-bagging them. This process enables the builder to use thin "doorskin" pieces of plywood which bend very easily and are very fair. After the vacuum-bagging you essentially end up with one large curved piece of plywood which is cut and bent to shape the hull.

I'll run whatever design I come up with through this forum before actaully starting to build anything.