Offshoreonly.com - Don Aronow 30 years gone!

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While Don was the financier and willing partner the guys that made his companies hull designs innovative and successful, Harry Schoell and Mike Peters, have continued to be innovative long after moving on from Aronow companies, specifically in the areas of stepped hills and race boats. Both guys have patents relating to stepped hulls and Mikes race cats have won 19 or 20 UIM championships.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CIG3 (Post 4525646)

Love him or not he was one of the people who made our Hobby, Sport, Passion what it is today. I was fortunate enough to spend time at Cigarette, Apache, Magnum and Hawk when they were both still running strong on 188th thanks to Scott Smith and Craig Barrie. The stories are endless from back in the day.

Scott Smith, I believe he worked at Cigarette for a while, but where is he now?

Quote:

Originally Posted by scippy (Post 4525802)

I just think he was perfectly suited to become even more of an innovator in hull design had he lived.........he ditched every successful boat company before the boredom set in -or- as soon
as the first sign of it was felt.
How many people you know would leave a successful company and then move on to another startup only to make that new one successful? ..........he did it 5 times!

I don't believe Don did much with bottom design beside pop a hull, make some cosmetic changes and make another mold. He also was not a believer in the step bottoms. His biggest idea was to split a deep vee in half. It made the most stable running boat ever, but it was also the slowest boat ever, even slower than a deep vee. But, he took lemons and made lemonade, got the CG to buy them. And then sold it to Kramer.

He was a very good business man who could build a boat company from nothing and sell it for big money, then buy it back for .10 cents on the dollar.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jusabum (Post 4526177)

. His biggest idea was to split a deep vee in half. It made the most stable running boat ever, but it was also the slowest boat ever, even slower than a deep vee. .

Don called me one day and asked me to make a 24 foot deep vee hull and ship it to him. No deck and don't worry about the bulkheads, just support the sides while it is moved down to Florida.

I did that ....and he sent me a check for the work. A couple of months later, he sent me a photo of a boat he built from the 24 foot deep vee hull. He had taken the 24 foot deep vee boat and split it in half and put a wing between the two halves of the hull. He said the boat was one of the most stable boats he ever built and.........(Fact here, not just an opinion) it was the first boat he built as an outboard that ran over 100 MPH with two Merc outboards on the back.

Scott is alive and well living in south Florida. After leaving Cigarette in 1999 he went to magnum for a few years. Then worked again with Craig Barrie to develop the Dragon 39. He and Craig sold the Dragon tooling to Giovanni Theodoli (Magnum) to create the GTMM 39.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jusabum (Post 4526174)

Scott Smith, I believe he worked at Cigarette for a while, but where is he now?

and to cap things off today march 3rd would have been his 90th birthday!

Quote:

Originally Posted by CIG3 (Post 4526332)

So, where is he now? Is GTMM still around? Good guy!