SUMMARYIn this paper, a numerical investigation of incompressible flow around a hydrofoil is presented. The laminar flow was modeled at different angles of attack. Momentum and continuity equations were coupled by the artificial compressibility scheme. In finite‐volume method, convective fluxes were calculated and compared by four schemes. Flux averaging with pressure correction was used. The other characteristic‐based (CB) methods consisted of Roe scheme and original CB scheme. A revised CB scheme was implemented in this research, which demonstrated very accurate solutions with respect to others. The results confirmed the superiority of the revised upwind scheme regarding accuracy and convergence without any requirement to artificial viscosity. The problem was studied at high Reynolds numbers at the onset of turbulence. For time discretization, the fifth‐order Runge–Kutta scheme was used. Results were compared with those of others in which good agreement was observed. Numerical experiments were performed on the NACA0012 hydrofoil. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.