The moonies boats were originally called master marine 28. I think they were basically a mako 25 mold that was stretched out to 28 feet by a new england guy. The moonies would run 4 man teams, fishing 2 at a time, on 24 hour shifts. I think they invented the concept of nailing a giant, and then racing back to port to beat the market (as mentioned above when the fish were airlifted to tokyo), as opposed to filling a downeast with multiple fish.
As far as I can tell, the variable deadrise on the master marine come from the two chines, which stick down into the water, sort of whaler-like. Pretty narrow hulls that could run offshore with smaller outboard power, and could be trailered. The moonies still make them, they are now called true world marine. If someone made up a novel about the moonies, I wouldn't believe it. I went to school was a few of the moonies kids.
There is a guy on reel-time/THT called CMP who confirms the "crazy BFT 1980s." He redid a really nice bertram 25. The size of fish and price sounds right, though I don't think anyone ever got both at the same time. CMP said a bunch of NE fishermen set up a company in tokyo to compete on price, which may be why the prices crept up.
Here are some photos of BFT off novi, yes tuna fishing used to be an intercollegiate sport!:
http://www.yale.edu/fishing/photo%20...%20scotia.html
(at the bottom of the page click on index to see 3 more pages of pics)