page_title: Go-fast boat
section_title: Illegal use
hierarchical_section_title: Go-fast boat / Illegal use
caption_attribution_description: English: Jacksonville, Florida. A Coast Guard helicopter from Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron in Jacksonville maneuvers over a Coast Guard tactical training boat. After the pilots get the helicopter into position, a gunner aboard the helicopter will simulate shooting out the engines of the boat. The tactical training boat is designed to mirror a high-speed drug smuggling boat used in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea known as a go-fast. Aircrews from HITRON deploy aboard Coast Guard cutters to known drug transit zones through out the Pacific and the Caribbean stopping smugglers. The armed helicopter interdiction unit has stopped 114 go-fasts since 1998 preventing more than $8 billion worth of illegal narcotics from hitting U.S.streets.
context_page_description: A go-fast boat is a small, fast boat designed with a long narrow platform and a planing hull to enable it to reach high speeds.
  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. 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.
context_section_description: These boats are difficult to detect by radar 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. Because of this, Coast Guards have developed their own high-speed craft and use helicopters equipped with anti-materiel rifles used to disable engines of fleeing boats. The US Coast Guard go-fast boat is a rigid-hulled inflatable boat (RHIB) equipped with radar and powerful engines. The RHIB is armed with several types of non-lethal weapons and an M240 GPMG.
caption: A helicopter from the US Coast Guard's Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron pursues a go-fast boat during training
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