A go-fast boat is a small, fast

powerboat A motorboat or powerboat is a boat that is exclusively powered by an engine; faster examples may be called "speedboats". Some motorboats are fitted with inboard engines, others have an outboard motor installed on the rear, containing the inter ...

designed with a long narrow platform and a planing hull. Depending on definitions used, it is either a speedboat (synonymously) or a certain type of speedboat. During the United States alcohol prohibition era, these boats were used in "

rum-running Rum-running, or bootlegging, is the illegal business of smuggling alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law. The term ''rum-running'' is more commonly applied to smuggling over water; ''bootlegging'' is applied to smugg ...

", transferring illegal liquor from larger vessels waiting outside US

territorial waters Territorial waters are informally an area of water where a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potentially the extended continental shelf ( ...

to the mainland. Their high speed enabled them to avoid interception by the

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of the government or other social institutions who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by investigating, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms gove ...

. The present conception of such boats is based largely on designs by

Donald Aronow Donald Joel Aronow (March 3, 1927 – February 3, 1987) was an American designer, builder, and racer of Formula Boats, Formula, Donzi, Magnum Marine, Cary, and Cigarette Racing Team speedboats. Aronow built speedboats for Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, ...

for

offshore powerboat racing Offshore powerboat racing is a type of racing by ocean-going powerboats, typically point-to-point racing. In most of the world, offshore powerboat racing is led by the Union Internationale Motonautique (UIM) regulated Class 1 and Powerboat P1 ...

in the 1960s. During this period, these boats were also used by drug smugglers to transfer drugs across the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

to the United States.

Name

Go-fast boats are also called cigarette boats or cigar boats—references to their hull shape, to the items that they are (archetypally) used to smuggle (see '' Illicit cigarette trade'' and ''

Cuban cigar Cuban cigars are cigars manufactured in Cuba from tobacco grown within that island nation. Historically regarded as among the world's "finest", they are synonymous with the island's culture and contribute over one quarter of the value of all expo ...

''), or both. The term "cigarette boat" is especially popular because it is a brand name for a line of go-fast boats that popularized and largely defined the class in the 1960s, made by Don Aronow's Cigarette Racing Team. "Cigar boat" is often preferred because it avoids confusion with that brand. Although modern go-fast boats postdate the fleet that was used for rum-running during the Great Depression, some of those boats were small and extremely fast, a theme that is shared with later smuggling (such as

drug smuggling The illegal drug trade, drug trafficking, or narcotrafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types ...

); thus, go-fast boats are sometimes informally (jocularly) called rum-runners.

Construction

A typical go-fast is laid-up using a combination of

fibreglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass ( Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass c ...

kevlar Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s as ...

and

carbon fibre Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers ( Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), also known as carbon fiber, carbon comp ...

, using a deep "" style offshore racing hull ranging from long, narrow in beam, and equipped with two or more powerful engines, often totalling more than . The boats can typically travel at speeds over in calm waters, over in choppy waters, and maintain in the average

seas. They are heavy enough to cut through higher waves, although slower.

Use

Reflecting their racing heritage, accommodations on these five-or-fewer-passenger boats are minimal. A small low cabin under the foredeck is typical, much smaller than a typical motor yacht of similar size. In addition to racing, most buyers buy these boats for their mystique, immense power, high top speeds, and sleek shape.

Illegal use

These boats are difficult to detect by

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

except on flat calm seas or at close range. The United States Coast Guard and the DEA found them to be stealthy, fast, seaworthy, and very difficult to intercept using conventional craft. Due to this, Coast Guards have developed their own high-speed craft and use

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

s equipped with

anti-materiel rifle An anti-materiel rifle (AMR) is a rifle designed for use against military equipment, structures, and other hardware (materiel) targets. Anti-materiel rifles are chambered in significantly larger calibers than conventional rifles and are employed ...

s used to disable engines of fleeing boats. The US Coast Guard go-fast boat is a

rigid-hulled inflatable boat A rigid inflatable boat (RIB), also rigid-hull inflatable boat or rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB), is a lightweight but high-performance and high-capacity boat constructed with a rigid hull (watercraft), hull bottom joined to side-forming a ...

(RHIB) equipped with radar and powerful engines. The RHIB is armed with several types of

non-lethal weapon Non-lethal weapons, also called nonlethal weapons, less-lethal weapons, less-than-lethal weapons, non-deadly weapons, compliance weapons, or pain-inducing weapons are weapons intended to be less likely to kill a living target than convention ...

s and an M240 GPMG.

Media portrayal

In the 2006 film ''

Miami Vice ''Miami Vice'' is an American crime drama television series created by Anthony Yerkovich and produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series stars Don Johnson as James "Sonny" Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo Tubbs, Ricardo "Rico" Tub ...

'', go-fast boats are used to smuggle drugs for cartels.

References

External links

Congressional testimony on technologies for detecting go-fast boats
Smuggling Motorboats