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 US territorial waters to the mainland. The high speed of such craft enabled them to avoid interception by the Coast Guard. The present conception of such 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.