Donald Joel Aronow (March 3, 1927 – February 3, 1987) was an American designer, builder, and racer of Formula, Donzi, Magnum Marine, Cary, and Cigarette Racing Team speedboats.
Aronow built speedboats for the Shah of Iran, Charles Keating, Robert Vesco, Malcolm Forbes, George H. W. Bush, and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Aronow graduated as a top athlete from James Madison High School in 1944, worked as a life guard at Coney Island, and enrolled at Brooklyn College.
Having sold Cigarette in 1982, Aronow formed USA Racing Team and built the Blue Thunders, 39-foot catamarans used by the United States Customs Service to patrol U.S. waters for illegal offshore activities, especially drug smuggling.
On February 3, 1987, Aronow was murdered in his car at the end of 188th Street in North Miami Beach, where his boat companies operated.
In 1995, Bobby Young admitted to the shooting and pleaded no contest to second degree murder, eventually providing a full confession in 2009 shortly before his death.
[3] Ben Kramer, winner of the 1986 American Power Boat Association Offshore Championship, pleaded no contest to manslaughter in 1996.