Rather missing the important thing here. Did you not notice that Paul wrote "you are saved"? He didn't write "will be saved" or "might be saved," but are saved - right now, in the present. Seems to contradict the conclusion of your OP pretty directly...
Whoa! Hold your horses! What Hebrews 11:1 actually says is that faith is the substance of our hope, or is the foundation or ground upon which our hope stands. Faith is the bedrock conviction of the truth of the things toward which our faith is exerted. It is an unshakable confidence in the truths of the Gospel and of the many promises of God that He has made to His children by which they are made "partakers of the divine nature." Faith is NOT hope, then, but the source or cause of our hope.
Have you thought about how faith is the "evidence of things not seen"? If one sees evidence of the truth of a thing, does one continue to hope that it is true? Imagine you've got hold of a treasure map to a buried treasure chest of Spanish gold doubloons. You've examined the map itself very carefully, and talked to experts about such maps, and studied the history surrounding the map thoroughly, and everything you've discovered gives you cause to believe the map is genuine and will lead you to gold if you follow it. All the evidence you have obtained gives you a strong faith in the veracity of the map. So, your hopes soaring that you will soon be a millionaire, you grab a shovel and head off to dig up the treasure chest.
Now, you haven't actually seen the chest itself. You haven't even been to where it is supposed to be buried. But all the information, all the evidence, you have gathered gives you good cause to believe that your hopes of finding the treasure are totally justified. You have deep faith in the map and this gives rise to a hope that prompts you to dig. In the same way, our faith in God and His truth prompts in us a hope, an expectation, that we will see that for which we hope. In fact, our faith in God and His promises ought to be so certain, so confident, that our hope is not "maybe" or "possibly," but "certainly" or "absolutely." This is what the writer of Hebrews is actually saying, not that faith is hope.
The believer's hope rests on knowledge: the knowledge of the promises of God to His children. So, hope, then, is inextricably linked with knowing, though hope and knowledge are not synonymous.
Do you not see the relationship between knowledge and faith here? Being persuaded of something is not the same as hoping for something. If I am persuaded that my father is, in fact, my father, I don't go about hoping that he is; if I'm persuaded that the sun will rise tomorrow, I don't go along hoping that it will; if I am persuaded that 2+2=4, I don't find myself hoping that it is. Being persuaded that a thing is true is stronger in its certainty than merely hoping that it is true. And the saints listed in Hebrews 11, despite seeing the promises of God "afar off" were nonetheless persuaded of the truth and reality of them rather than merely hoped they would be fulfilled.
This is entirely unbiblical. If our salvation is so uncertain, why did Paul write,
2 Corinthians 13:5
5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?--unless indeed you are disqualified.
If no one can truly know that they are saved, Paul's words here are nonsensical. Is this what you're saying? Is Paul writing nonsense here? The only other alternative is that you are mistaken in your thinking on salvation.
The Bible offers a number of signs of genuine conversion, signs by which to do as Paul commands and discern if one is truly born again or not:
1. The Fruit Test:
Matthew 7:17-20
17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.
(See also 1 John 2:3-6)
2. A Love of the Brethren:
1 John 3:14
14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death.
3. A hunger for the Word of God:
Jeremiah 15:16
16 Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.
Psalms 19:9-11
9 The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold, Yea, than much fine gold; Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
11 Moreover by them Your servant is warned, And in keeping them there is great reward.
4. The Inner Witness of God's Spirit:
Romans 8:16
16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God...
This is the sort of thinking that happens when one does not properly know and understand Scripture. Paul wrote,
2 Timothy 1:12
12 For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.
Paul was not merely hoping he was saved; he was persuaded that his life, which he had committed to Christ, would be kept safe from the wrath and judgment of God and brought into heavenly and eternal rest and reward. Paul did not say in 2 Timothy 4:7 that he was fighting to keep his faith; he said only that he had kept it. And so he would, if he was persuaded as he said he was in the verse I quoted above. Paul's fight was against the tremendous resistance he encountered to his ministry to the Gentiles both temporally and spiritually. He recounts some of the "fight" in his letter to the Corinthian church:
2 Corinthians 11:23-28
23 ...in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often.
24 From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one.
25 Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep;
26 in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
27 in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness--
28 besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.
Here was the "race" Paul had run, a description of the "fight" he had fought as he kept the faith, that is, lived in obedience to the commands and calling of God upon him.
Not so. See above.