I have become a little bit interestd in boat design after playing around with Ross Leidy's KayakFoundary and have been gradually learning more and more as I tweak my design for a competitive ocean/surf ski. More recently, i have been reading up on drag. This topic got me thinking about surface finish. Typically we aim for a hull finish that is as smooth as possible. Why not, it looks good and shows off the timber.
Then i started thinking about the hi tech swimsuits that are worn nowadays. speedo's design team came up with the idea of emulating sharkskin. A Sharks skin consists of tiny raked back teeth like thingos called denticles which are believed to reduce turbulance directly next to the sharks skin.

I imagine it would be difficult to reproduce sharklike denticles with the ROS but was wondering if anybody out there had any insights into the effects of surface finish on drag reduction?

more of an academic question really as I am a mid field plonker so this type of fine tuned performance enhancement would be lost on me plus I like shint wood.
Cheers, Craig