The origin of the term "cigarette boat"
 

Where did it come from? I've read the wikipedia definition but am interested in what you guys think. Didn't it predate the Don Aronow race boat "The Cigarette"? I suppose it can be used to describe any 35'+ dee vee offshore boat with twin inboards. Or do you call it a go fast? To me "go fast" also could include catamarans. I have been corrected and been told no, it's a "cigar boat". Is that even a thing??

I always thought the term “cigarette boat” came out of the 80s and the popularity of cigarette (the manufacturer) boats. No clue where the term “cigar boat” came from but I laugh when I hear someone use it to describe a boat they saw.

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Don Aronow was brought up in Brooklyn NY in the Sheepshead Bay section.

During the Prohibition days there was a famous Rum Runner that operated out of that area and the name of the boat was The Cigarette. It was called that because it was narrower in beam than the other boats of that era and thus faster.

When Don Started racing offshore boats he used that name on his first racing boat, made by one of his own companies, Formula. It was a Formula 233 and he first raced it in 1963. White boat in water.

The second boat that he used the name on was a 28 foot Magnum, that he planned on using for his attempt to win his second World Championship title in 1969. HORBA photo

The third and most famous race boat called The Cigarette, was the 32 foot Cary that he actually did use to win his 1969 World Championship title in 1969. Black boat shown as model.

Formula designs were from Jim Wynne and Walt Walters. Magnum And Cary designs were from Harry Schoell.

As a proud father, Don named his first couple of race boats Claudia. After he got in the boat-building business he needed a less personal and more marketable name. Claudia still likes her father's Cigarette though.
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Claudia is a very famous artist in her own right and her son is very famous men's fashion designer.

Quite a family!

I read somewhere that long skinny power boats were used to run actual cartons of cigarettes across the Mediterranean to countries that had high tariffs or laws against.

Liquor and tobacco popular contraband.
 

Contraband is common the World around of course and at several places, during shorter and longer eras, speedboats have been the way to go to move it. During Don Aronow's childhood, both city and state tax were put on cigarettes in New York City, so many smaller boats would speed over from New Jersey, across the Lower Bay to places like Don's Sheepshead Bay neighborhood and nearby Bath Beach. This went on for decades even after WWII. The Interstate 95 from Georgia & The Carolinas to New York is still an active "Tobacco Road". On the 'Left Coast', where I live, they smuggle drugs in the traditional panga-style boats. This photo is from a 2015 bust just offshore of Greater Los Angeles.
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Off topic here but please indulge me for a second. When larslindroth mentioned Don's old neighborhood (birth place) of Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn it's striking to me that the community board of Kings county denied him of a placard and or street sign in front of his childhood home on ave. R..........I know because I fought for this recognition.

I always thought it was from Gar Wood's boat called the Cigarette that Don watched from a lifeguard stand he sat in as a kid on Long Island?

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