Hello everyone,
I am very new to composites, as part of my degree I am doing a composites design course. One of the assignments for the course required me to pick a composite product and reverse engineer it. I picked a surfboard with carbon fiber rails (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w2SVZk3uAs). The surfboard components are:
1)    Foam core – Polystyrene core is created using a mould
2)    Glass fiber – Hand layup is used to lay the glass fiber, cured with epoxy
3)    Carbon Fiber- UD carbon tape is used for the rails

Hand lay-up is a time consuming, labour intensive method with low reproducible accuracy. I need to suggest an alternative manufacturing technique. I was wondering if RTM could be used as a suitable alternate manufacturing technique? I tried searching on it but didnt find info on RTM for surfboard manufacturing which is making me doubt if its a suitable technique. I have a few questions:

1) I presume VARTM can not be used in this case as the polystyrene core will obviously collapse under vaccuum. Can someone confirm this?
2) If I were to use RTM, could I used my foam core directly as the mould? layup glass fiber on it and then inject the resin?
3) In the case of hand lay-up, is the entire foam core (top and bottom) covered with one piece of glass fiber fabric or is each side done separately?
4) How do I determine the number of glass fiber plies need to withstand the load exerted by the surfer?

As is obvious, this is a completely new field for me so my questions might seem very dumb but I would be very grateful if anyone could help me out a little.

Thanks!