how did the cigarette boat get its name
During the era of Prohibition in the United States , these boats joined the ranks of `` rum - runners '' transferring illegal liquor from larger vessels waiting outside U.S. territorial waters to the mainland . The high speed of such craft enabled them to avoid interception by the Coast Guard . More recently the term `` cigarette boat '' has replaced the term `` rum - runner '' . The present era of cigarette boats , dating from the 1960s , owes much of their design to boats designed for offshore powerboat racing , particularly by designer and builder Donald Aronow . During this period , these boats were used by drug smugglers to transfer drugs across the Caribbean to the United States .