Recently had a new member contact me and asked if I would be interested in hearing about his historic offshore boat that he had restored.

Yes I said, didn't matter what he had, all these old boats are important.

Well, he has restored the first Cigarette that Don raced....it is a Formula 233 with a 409 engine in it.

We have the whole story up on the site under member's boats.

It is a great story and has a lot of nice photos to go with it. I am going to be going for a ride in the boat in a couple of weeks and will give a complete report on the site.

Also some other new stuff has been put up by the web people too. Check it out.


www.historicraceboats.com

very cool article.

Now if somone could find Cigarette Racing Team #1!!

Until recently there had been an early run 60's 233 with the interceptor deck on it next door to my parents house in Penfield NY with twin Ford 6cyl/volvos for years. pretty bad shape mechanically, but all there and all original. I watched it sink into the asphalt for 15 years until the trailer axles made indents. Tried to buy it several times but never for sale, finally gave up pressuring the owner because of the realization of the restoration costs, and I ve got too many boat projects as it is.
Last week I saw it sitting in front of an auto wrecking yard with a price of $1500 on it. Too bad it will probably end up cut up and ground down, and sent to the dump. Way too cool a boat to end up that way.

Great job on this site! Brings me waaay back to my youth. Thanks for all the memories.

Funny how things change. As a kid these boats were the stuff dreams were made of, and only viewed through magazine articles. At the time, the "hot boats" that everyone with $ had were Glasspar g-3's or Glastron Jetflites.

Oh well, enough dreaming- time to go back to work!

im told one of the first 3 is in chicago

Very cool article and an excellent restoration. Thanks.

That´s a beautful restoration.

Ther is a cig here in Chicago that is a 1973 36' x 9' and is supposedly one of the first three built and raced. My uncle owned it and we tradded it off , we found out this info after the fact. He didn't have the kind of money it needed to bring back to top notch shape, a shame tho it was fun to drive and would go through anything.

If it was builded in 1973 it was one of the last 36' builded,not one the firsts.
The first three was the Black Tornado of Balestrieri,but I think it still somewhere in Italy,the Aeromarine I/KAM,but it was modified by the BAM Marine,and the Blonde of Roger Hanks or the Starduster of Doug Silvera.

i watched that boat being redone, and all i can say is W O W !!!

i'm told the first 3 were mid 20' single engine ,the one i know of was powered by a 427cu'' tall deck chevy ,,one was white ,one red and this one was blue