Brian, obviously you are aware that no way can a SOF have those concave bow and stern crosscuts the Nordkapp has? I suspect it is these combined with the relatively moderate rounded cockpit area that give it the wonderful trade off of conflicting properties it has.

: I'd also like to note that the boat is fine in relatively rough water as long
: as the waves are consistantly from one direction. It's confused water that
: creates a problem. In the area in question, the water was just just
: splashing up and down in small peaks all over the place, without a really
: dominant wave direction. It's hard to explain.

Its partly the above but also your description overall that makes me think the problem is low initial stability. The secondary probably is nothing to boast about either, but enough. Low initial would make it easy to lean into regular waves of almost any description, but be a pain when the waves are random.

Was that a case of refracting wave fronts, or waves running against a tidal flow? Sometimes one even gets this behind an island of suitable size...