Ran across this ex-navy (??) HSB attack boat on ebay, link below. Anyone know the skinny on these boats, who built them, when, where were they built, any successfully converted to pleasure??

TIA,
Rick

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/REAL-...#ht_659wt_1021

I've seen them advertised at Cigarettes FWIW. Maybe that means aronow was the designer? They are kevlar I believe. That's the only white one I've seen. They are usually grey with big wide wavy vertical blue stripes.

I've looked at one of these in person. They are little different than the classic cigarette proportions, with the raised windshield area being really high and far forward. The cockpit is super deep, probably 4' from the floor to the top of that windsheild.

There was a huge thread on here a while ago with tons of cool info and photos.

the coast guard ran tempest marine 40ftr in late 80's. looks like same hulls. contract was part of plee agreement. they had 3208 cats overboard, overfueled and overspeed with fixed surface drives, junk. engines were middle of cockpit area with heavy gearboxes. these look like they were at least put away, covers over drive holes, i would check hull for damage and stress cracking. they have been rode hard and put away, we used to cut ours up with chainsaws after striping useful equipment.

There were several different contractors to Navy special warfare at the time, the best in my opinion are the ones that were built by United States Marine inc. in New Orleans.