Starting out in Performance Powerboat Design

I am currently enrolled in school at Florida State University. I am in the process of switching majors and would like to get into the powerboat/performance area. I would appreciate it if you could tell me who to contact about this. I have E-mailed numerous manufacturers(Donzi, Cigarette,Sunsation, etc...) and have yet to recieve a reply. Anything you could tell me about getting into this industry will be a big help.
Thank you
Andrew Torian
theman59@msn.com

A good way to network is to attend tradeshows such as IBEX in Ft. Lauderdale (Feb 5-8), Miami Boat Show, or the new NMMA Boatbuilding show in Atlanta in the fall. Most of these shows give complimentary passes to students. IBEX usually has some good seminars and demos for design and mfg. Try www.ibexshow.com or www.cfa-hq.org.

For on-line boat data, see:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=303

Also note that FIT ( http://www.fit.edu/catalog/eng/ocean-eng.html ) and FAU ( http://www.oe.fau.edu/ ) have related programs.

Florida powerboat designers include Michael Peters
http://www.mpyd.net/
and Harry Schoell
www.pulsedrive.net

Finally, there's lots of good info on this subject elswhere on this site. Keep browsing!

If there's one person you should talk to it's Dr. Zborowski at FIT (see link above).

Other useful links

http://www.dlba-inc.com/
http://www.shipmotion.com/links.htm
http://www.name.uno.edu/
http://www.structuralcomposites.com/
http://www.hydrocompinc.com/

I also searched for, but was unable to locate quickly:

David Jones, Sigma Labs (Florida)
Robert Schofield, Naval Architect (Florida)
Lou Codega, Naval Architect (Pennsylvania?)
Robert Sintes, Naval Architect (New Orleans)

One would hope that it'd be easy to transfer from one Florida state school to another. If it is, you might really want to consider transferring to the FAU Ocean Engineering program mentioned previously. Or, if you're going to stay put, look in to taking some aeronautical engineering courses.

Good Luck!

See also:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=328