Vintage Kiekhaefer Aeromarine III Cigarette To Compete In Cowes-Torquay-Cowes
Good Boy Vodka founder Alex Pratt and a couple of canopied Outerlimits Offshore Powerboats V-bottoms with Mercury Racing engines won’t be the only homegrown North American products competing in the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes offshore endurance race off the southern coast of England later this month. A vintage 1971 model-year Cigarette Racing Team V-bottom dubbed Kiekhaefer Aeromarine III will compete in the 210-mile open-water contest around the Isle of Wight.
The 36-foot-long conventional V-bottom is owned by British Powerboat Racing Club chairman Christian Toll. James Shepard and James McVrae will be alongside him in the cockpit.
In the early to mid-1970s, the Kiekhaefer Aeromarine III Cigarette was the boat to beat. Photos courtesy Christian Toll
Designed by the famed Harry Schoell for Cigarette company owner Don Aronow, the Kiekhaefer Aeromarine engine-powered boat claimed multiple national and world titles during the early 1970s in the capable hands of driver Dr. Robert Magoon, and Miami-based eye surgeon and throttleman Gene Langham, a Miami-Dade County fire chief. Magoon retired from the sport in 1974 and sold it Charles Gill of the United Kingdom, who named the boat I Like It Too. He successfully campaigned it in the 1975 and 1976 Cowes-Torquay-Cowes events.
Gill sold the boat at the end of the 1976 season. For the next 24 years, it changed hands several times and ran infrequently until Joern Amudsen of Norway purchased the aging 36-footer in 2000 and began restoring it. The diligent Norwegian located and acquired the boat’s original Kiekhaefer Aeromarine engines, which had been pulled from the boat years earlier, and reinstalled them.
The legendary Carl Kiekhaefer cheered on Dr. Robert Magoon and Gene Langham during the 1973 U.S. National Championships.
“The complete package was reunited,” Toll said. “Joern ran the boat a few times and played around with various setups to try and make it to run over 100 mph. In 2015, he decided that he had had his fun with the boat and was looking for a new buyer.”
A lifelong powerboat enthusiast, Toll jumped at the chance to own a piece of offshore racing history. He bought the boat and had it shipped with its various parts from Norway to the United Kingdom. Then the owner and his team went to work to “restore it to its former glory,” he said.
For Christian Toll and company, the restoration project has been a labor of love.
“Everything was blasted and sanded down to the original gelcoat,” Toll explained. “A new transom was fitted, new fuel tanks were made and fitted, and the engines were sent to America for complete rebuilds. The graphics on the hull have even been hand-painted, faithfully reconstructing the original look.”
“It has been a very long and painstaking restoration,” he added. “But now in August 2024, the boat will finally be back in the water and will compete again in the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes race.”
The classic Kiekhaefer Aeromarine III Cigarette raceboat will be back in action at the end of the month.
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