The comment about painting the boat reminds me of supercavitation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercavitation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercavitation used

The comment about painting the boat reminds me of supercavitation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercavitation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercavitation used to greatly increase speed of some torpedos. You could probably retain stability of the boat by painting stripes from front to back. They would act similar to fins.