I draw with AutoCAD ,Then always Loft full size , The pressures , Both Plate and Structural loads are calculated and the building schedule is reflective. Same for the Tunnel lift on a Cat .

That was my plan im attending college next fall to learn marine design along with composites and marine systems so hopefully i will be able to start my own performance boat company some day

I think that's terrific, three things to keep in mind: Physics, Software and Building.
As mentioned Autocad for CAD, for CFD http://www.cd-adapco.com/ I believe has a huge discount for college students.

Most importantly; if it were me, I would intern/work with one of the super geniuses of the build industry while attending school and get hands on as soon and as much as possible. Take care.

I learn Cad with ME10 and AutoCad programs at Baja Marine, but we later switched to Unigraphics (UG) for basic drawings and 3d design. We also used a program called FEA that calculated stress on areas when a force was applied. Wind tunnel testing, and hydro testing.

Just like Lighthouse said, work with someone that has been successful for free if you have to because all Cad programs are only TOOL's and talent comes mainly from experience.

Here is another course I took many years ago, but I found it to be a little dated at the time.

http://www.westlawn.edu/index.asp

XT

im guessing you use ansys for FEA? actually on second thought, UG has fea built into the tool.

I'm currently finishing my last year as an undergrad at the University of New Orleans in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.

You will find that Rhino is the most widely used 3d modeler in the marine industry, even for ships. The software is very powerful, and inexpensive compared to its counterparts. Learn it and love it, there are some great marine specific tutorials out there!

Also for the college students autodesk offers free downloads of full software for your entire career as a student. Take advantage of it!

I also second that experience is critical, I've worked for MasterCraft and for Peter Hledin at Skater and both experiences have taught me a great deal that I would have never learned in the class room. If you are entering a NA&ME program make sure that they offer a good high speed craft class and start reading as much as you can on the topic. High speed craft offer the most complex problems to solve for engineers in the marine field and the science is just catching up with the art. I also strongly suggest taking some art classes and getting a feel for what makes an aesthetic design.

feel free to email me if you have any questions m welton at uno dot edu.

CFD of a high speed craft is still in its infancy and there are only a few people in the country that can get accurate results. The CFD classes that most universities offer are usually geared toward mechanical engineering problems.

Actually I personally never got the chance to run FEA. They hired a fresh collage grad to do just that one job and and moved on to be the Project Manager on many of the new models around 2006 to 2008 when it was closed.

XT

That's awesome. What kinda of speeds are we talking about; is this ground effect? Thanks.

For CFD anything in the planning regime is very difficult to model because of all the factors that come into play from the spray that is produced. Right now large scale model tests or full size prototypes are the best way to get accurate and consistent answers. CFD only can give a very rough ball park answer to the problem.